The optimization bias in inter-temporal decision-making
PublicPeople evidence behaviors that engender hope for future behavior change, but also evidence this hope when there is no reason to believe that any behavior change will occur. For example, prior research suggests that temporal factors make people susceptible to change their minds over time, and a confluence of cognitive biases make people perceive unlikely outcomes as more likely than they actually are. I propose that these temporal and cognitive factors give way to an unaccounted bias present in inter-temporal decision-making, which I will refer to as the optimization bias. The optimization bias will be defined as the misguiding belief that future ability greatly surpasses current ability. The optimization bias is obtained in the measured disjunction between perceived improvement at activities over time and typical performance trajectories. Over 7 experiments, I found consistent decision-making errors in which people overestimated their perceived success at activities, when increased success is highly improbable. I investigate factors of luck and skill, time, practice, and agency.
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- http://dissertations.umi.com/northwestern:14710
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