Cognitive Bias at the Coffee Shop

You walk into a crowded coffee shop for the first time, taking refuge from a cold and rainy day outside. Your eyes aren’t quite open yet. You’re not exactly what they call a morning person.

The clerk seems a little too chipper. “Looks like someone’s got a case of the Mondays!”, she sings, hearkening back to Office Space. Instantly, you’re certain she’s always been one of those people whose eyes pop open at 5 AM, eager to start their day. Rubbing it in everyone’s faces, even.

You see the menu price for espressos, note that double espressos are 25% off of their usual price, which is $5. Delighted by your luck in finding this sale, you order two to go. You’ve heard this place is really good, although you’re used to the place down the road—your normal watering hole for mornings.

You watch as she calls the order to the dude on the espresso machine. She yawns and rubs her eyes as she’s talking back and forth to the guy, but then she processes your card quickly and efficiently. Obviously she’s a morning person.

As you’re walking out to head home, a car drives a little close to the curb and splashes cold water onto the bottom of your pants.

“I knew I should have stuck with my usual spot!”

Congratulations! You’ve just given us several excellent examples of cognitive biases—little shortcuts your brain makes that try to make sense of the world around us. Let’s talk about those today.

Fundamental Attribution Error (FAE)

Matt Rickard

writes great short explanations of individual concepts. His description of FAE is spot-on:

The fundamental attribution error is our tendency to (wrongly) attribute the behaviors of others to internal, personal characteristics and our own behaviors to external, situational factors. For example, if someone is late, we think they are lazy. If we are late, we think we were delayed.

You can read the rest of Matt’s explanation of FAE here. I also wrote a longer piece here. When the “case of the Mondays” lady first spoke to you in a chipper voice, you simply knew she was a morning person.

Anchoring

That espresso that was originally $5 (but it’s 25% off today) is a great example of anchoring bias.

That first price you hear is the “anchor” in this analogy, and it’s an all-too-human tendency to rely heavily on the first piece of information you run into. By setting an initial high price (the anchor), any subsequent price, even if it's still high but discounted, seems like a good deal in comparison.

Now, it’s totally possible that the espresso really was a bargain. Who am I to question the power of coffee? I wrote an ode to it recently with

Michael Woudenberg

.

However, this is a classic spot where you want to be aware of anchoring. And, while it might not matter much with a second cup of espresso, this cognitive bias extends to much bigger realms like home prices, salaries, and even how you view someone’s personality. You tend to anchor to that first impression, and you might be wrong.

Being aware of anchoring can help you make more informed decisions and recognize when it's being used to influence your choices.

Confirmation Bias

Despite observing signs that the clerk might not be a morning person (like her yawning), you selectively focused on her efficiency, which confirms your initial belief that she's a morning person.

This is a classic example of confirmation bias. It's our tendency to seek, favor, and remember information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs, while often ignoring or dismissing information that contradicts them. Ever hear of the phrase “selective hearing” or “cherry picking”? Think about those phrases when you hear “confirmation bias.”

We gravitate towards sources that reinforce our views, and this can create an echo chamber where we're only exposed to one side of the story, where intellectual entropy reigns supreme.

Why does this happen? It's comforting. Our beliefs form a part of our identity, and any challenge to them can feel like a personal attack. So, our brain, ever the protector, filters out contradictory information to keep us in our comfort zone.

Status Quo Bias

Routine is powerful. I like to leverage my own personal routine to make sure I can do the things that are most important to me, and that includes automatically writing every day, as I’m doing right now.

Nevertheless, routine is a double-edged sword. Remember how you’re used to that other coffee shop, the one down the road a bit from this one? When the car splashes you with water, you take it as the universe telling you that this venture was a mistake.

This is a quintessential example of the status quo bias in action. It's our natural tendency to resist change and stick with what's familiar, even when there might be clear advantages to trying something new. Because of our hunter-gatherer days, we’re often very comfortable with the known, and extremely cautious of the unknown, leading us to make decisions based on familiarity rather than objective evaluation.

This sort of thinking got us here! It was a really good thing back then, but today we don’t have animals waiting in the brush to kill us, or poisonous plants we might try in our quest for new things to eat. Instead of protecting us, status quo bias makes us reticent to try new things, and is more often than not harmful.

Stepping outside of your comfort zone is never easy, but understanding what might be holding you back can make this leap of faith a lot easier.

Knowledge Is Power

Our minds are the lens through which we interpret the world. Unfortunately, as powerful as the human mind is, this lens is not immune to smudges, smears, and even cracks. Understanding that we all have cognitive biases—and knowing what they are—can help us navigate with a much clearer lens.

While these cognitive biases once served crucial evolutionary purposes, in today's nuanced society, they can sometimes lead us astray. By understanding and recognizing them, we can strive to make more informed, rational decisions, breaking free from the invisible chains of evolution’s making. The world is not always as it seems, but with awareness, we can see it a little more clearly.

Are there some biases you’ve noticed that you’re particularly susceptible to falling into? If you feel like sharing, please do!