The SEEDS of Bias
Dr. David Rock and his colleagues at the Neuroleadership Institute have developed the SEEDS Model, which shows that biases fall into five key categories. Below are samples for each catagory.
SIMILARITY BIASES
In-group Bias: Perceiving people who are similar to you (in ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, profession, etc.) more positively. (“We can trust her; her hometown is near mine.”) Out-group Bias: Perceiving people who are different from you more negatively. (“We can’t trust him; look where he grew up.”)
EXPEDIENCE BIASES
Confirmation Bias: Seeking and finding evidence that confirms your beliefs and ignoring evidence that does not. (“I trust only one news channel; it tells the truth about the political party I despise.”)
Halo Effect: Letting someone’s positive qualities in one area influence overall perception of that individual. (“He may not know much about people, but he’s a great engineer and a hard-working guy; let’s put him in charge of the team.”)
EXPERIENCE BIASES
False Consensus Effect: Overestimating the universality of your own beliefs, habits, and opinions. (“Of course I hate broccoli; doesn’t everyone?”) Hindsight Bias: Seeing past events as having been predictable in retrospect. (“I knew the financial crisis was coming.”)
DISTANCE BIASES
Affective Forecasting: Judging your future emotional states based on how you feel now. (“I feel miserable about it, and I always will.”)
Temporal Discounting: Placing less value on rewards as they move further into the future. (“They made a great offer, but they can’t pay me for five weeks, so I’m going with someone else.”)
SAFETY BIASES
Loss Aversion: Making a risk-averse choice if the expected outcome is positive, but making a risk-seeking choice to avoid negative outcomes. (“We have to take a chance and invest in this, or our competitors will beat us to it.”)
Framing Effect: Basing a judgment on whether a decision is presented as a gain or as a loss, rather than on objective criteria. (“I hate this idea now that I see our competitors walking away from it.”)