Chapter 4: Pattern Painting, Cognitive Biases and Heuristics

Question 1

The brain uses mental shortcuts (heuristics) to cut trough the noise and make quick decisions. A basic understanding is crucial for controlling your own behaviors and influencing the behaviors of others. What are two facts about the brain?

Answer 1

1. It is tasked with keeping you alive and, therefore focuses in things in the environment that are unexpected and could post a threat while ignoring things that are the same (patterns) to ensure that is does not miss the former.
2. It is lazy, preferring the path of least resistance or cognitive load when making decisions, which also contributes to keeping you alive. When the brain sees a pattern, for example, that is similar to other patterns, instead of taking the time to analyze whether the two things are different, it assumes they are the samen and uses that shortcut to make quick decisions.

Question 2

What happens when your sales behaviors fall into an expected pattern?

Answer 2

You will not differentiate and garner attention. You do not create fear or promise pleasure. You are not interesting.

Question 3

What is a heuristic?

Answer 3

A mental shortcut our brains leverage to make quick decisions. A path to an outcome that incurs the least amount of effort and cognitive load.

Question 4

Heuristics aid stakeholders in working trough complex problems faster, they also lead to cognitive biases that result in emotional decision making. What happens next?

Answer 4

Rational, objective analysis is pushed aside by the lazy brain looking for an easy way out. The irrational buyer is born!

Question 5

People act on emotion and justify with logic

Answer 5

TRUE

Question 6

What is cognitive dissonance?

Answer 6

When you take an action that is inconsistent with a prior commitment, or are confronted with information that directly contravenes something you believe to be true, it creates mental stress and emotional discomfort.

Question 7

What do humans do in order to accomplish dissonance reduction?

Answer 7

Dissonance is so emotionally painful that people will, in many cases, deny facts, deny evidence, and rationalize anything to protect a core belief.

Question 8

What happens when ask people what they like about something?

Answer 8

You trigger the negativity bias. Most people will respond with a few positives and quickly shift to negatives.