On June 29, 2021, Harvard's PONS posted a blog written by staff entitled, "Negotiators: Resist Vividness Bias in Negotiations." It defined vividness bias as "…the tendency to overweight the vivid and prestigious attributes of a decision, such as a salary or an employer's status, and underweight less impressive issues, such [Read More]
Recently, I discussed an empirical study conducted by University of Hawaii Professor Justin D. Levinson and Mark Bennett, U. S. District Judge (ret.) on 239 sitting federal and state judges regarding their implicit bias towards "largely favored minority groups" (or the "Model Minority")- Asians Americans and Jews. (Levinson, Justin D., [Read More]
Recently, I attended a Zoom presentation sponsored by the American Jewish Committee San Francisco entitled, "Judging Implicit Bias: The Role of Implicit Bias in Judicial Decision-making." Two of the presenters- University of Hawaii Professor Justin D. Levinson and Mark Bennett, U. S. District Judge (ret.) discussed an empirical study they [Read More]
We have all read and/or heard about studies showing that witnesses more often than not misidentify a suspect in a criminal matter. Now, a recent study reveals that we also misremember our whereabouts at a particular time. Entitled "Where were you on Thursday the 15th?" in The Economist, June 5th, [Read More]
In a recent post, I discussed the distinction between "noise" and "bias" as noted in the new book, Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment (Hachette Book Group, New York 2021) by Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony, and Cass R. Sunstein. Although somewhat intense reading, I managed to finish it and realized [Read More]
Two recent studies discussed in Katie Shonk's Harvard PONS blog Challenges Facing Women Negotiators (June 1, 2021) confirm what I have long suspected: it is tough being a woman negotiator. Or more bluntly, any given negotiation scenario is biased against women when men are involved. ("Blog") The first study by [Read More]
I recently finished reading The Power of Moments by Chip Heath and Dan Heath (Simon &Schuster, New York 2017) for an upcoming book club discussion. The authors note that we spend the bulk of our lives living forgettable moments. Yet, every once in a while, we have a moment [Read More]
I learned a new term recently: noise. Not “noise” as in a room full of people talking loudly, but “noise” as opposed to “bias”. Whereas “bias” is defined as errors in judgement, “noise” is defined as “the random errors that create decision risk and uncertainty.” ( Noise Versus Bias- We [Read More]
