Matthew Heusser started a blog this week. Matt's easily one of the best speakers I've met. He's also a good writer. Some (and I'm not saying who) would even say he's a nice guy. We'll have to see what we can do to convince Antony to add him to the TR blogroll.

In addition, Karen Johnson has started a TR blog. Karen is a great writer and a passionate tester.

I look forward to continued content from both.

The following list comes from Negotiation, Fifth Edition by Lewicki, Saunders, and Barry. It's a great list. I didn't know how to present the content, because there's a mix of direct quotes and my comments. So anything in quotes below is a direct quote from the book. Anything else is a refactor of that content or my comment.



escalation of commitment
"The tendency for an individual to make decisions that stick with a failing course of action." This is supported by confirmation bias where we seek out supportive information that confirms the choice we've committed to.

mythical fixed-pie belief
"The mythical belief that the issues under negotiation are all fixed-pie", or zero-sum exchanges. Those who suffer from this bias assume there is no possibility for a mutually beneficial trade-off.

anchoring and adjustment
"Related to the effect of the standard (or anchor) against which subsequent adjustments are made during negotiation. The choice of an anchor (...) might well be based on faulty or incomplete information and thus be misleading in and of itself."

issue and problem framing
"A frame is a perspective or point of view that people use when they gather information and solve problems." The way we frame a problem influences how we seek or avoid information. "The way an issue is framed influences how negotiators perceive risk and behave in relation to it."

Frame blindness takes this one step further. This "involves perceiving, the solving, the wrong problem, accompanied by overlooking options and losing sight of objectives."

"Lack of frame control involves failing to test different frames to determine if they fit the issues being discussed or being unduly influenced."

availability of information
Also known as a recall bias, availability bias is "how easy information is to retrieve." This bias says that we tend to favor that which is easiest for us to recall; that's the information we will use to inform our decision processes.

the winner's curse
This bias refers to the feeling of discomfort that you get after you win a negotiation too easily. For example, you are negotiating a rate and say $150 an hour. They say, "Sure" without hesitation. Now you start to wonder if you could have gotten $200 and you beat yourself up, even though you got exactly what you asked for. Now, you start to develop a bad feeling for the client because they accepted your first rate offer. The winner's curse says you may actually do worse work, then if they had negotiated you down to $130, becaues now you feel like you aren't getting paid enough.

overconfidence
Overconfidence biases us to support positions that are incorrect and can lead us to "discount the worth or validity of the judgments of others." This can shut down sources of information that might otherwise help us. Overconfidence is, to me, one of the principle biases of someone who is not context driven. When I struggle to remain context driven, it's because I'm overconfident in my own solution to a perceived problem.

law of small numbers
Decision theory indicates that people have a tendency to draw conclusions from small sample sizes. The book Freakonomics hits on this several times. "This fallacy results in a tendency to believe that a small sequence of events is representative, while ignoring base rate data from a larger universe of events."

self-serving biases
Let's start with fundamental attribution error. This bias is where we attribute events or behaviors to external factors ("the task, other people, or fate") or internal factors ("ability, mood, or effort") in an effort to explain something away and make it irrelevant.

Another self-serving bias is the observer effect, "where you attribute [your] own behavior to situational factors, but attribute others' behaviors to personal factors." For example, "If I miss that bug it's because the system is so complex that no one could ever find it except by luck, but if Jimmy misses that bug it's because he's incompetent."

endowment effects
"The endowment effect is the tendency to overvalue something you own or believe you possess." If someone shows you a new test tool, you might say, "Eh, it's nice. I might use it." But if you show off the same tool, you might say, "This tool is the best tool I've seen for this type of testing." Once you own it, it's value increases.

the tendency to ignore others' cognitions
We often don't ask about other's "perceptions and thoughts, which leaves [us working] with incomplete information, and thus produces faulty results."

reactive devaluation
"Reactive devaluation is the process of devaluing the other party's concessions simply because the other party made them." For example, "I just don't like him." It's an in the box activity.