Time-saving bias ⏰
🧠 Psych - 47 / 100
Hello,
Today, we will be talking about a very interesting, Time-saving bias ⏰.
What is it?
Our human tendency to misjudge / incorrectly estimate the amount of saved or lost time when increasing or decreasing speed.
Example -
When drivers are asked to estimate how much time can be saved by increasing speed, they generally underestimate the time saved when increasing from a relatively low speed and overestimate the time saved when increasing from a relatively high speed.
This time-saving bias has been demonstrated to affect drivers' estimations of driving speed as well as drivers' personal choice of speed.
Specifically, drivers with a high time-saving bias chose unduly high speeds, which sometimes results in speeding, more frequently than drivers with a lower degree of the bias. [1]
Where does it occur?
You can mostly associate it with the cases of long drives or when going for an exploration of new territory where you have no previous idea of estimated time required to reach the right place.
Why do I need to know?
Svenson (2008) suggested that people's judgments of time-savings actually follow a Proportion heuristic, by which people judge the time saved as the proportion of the speed increase from the initial speed.
Another study suggested that people might follow a simpler difference heuristic, by which, they judge the time saved based solely on the difference between the initial and higher speed (Peer, 2010b, Study 3).
It seems that people falsely believe that journey time decreases somewhat linearly as driving speed increases, irrespective of the initial speed, causing the time-saving bias.
Although it is still unclear what is the dominant heuristic people use to estimate time savings, it is evident that almost none follow the above curvilinear relationship. [2]
Takeaways:-
You may be biased if you are thinking that increasing or decreasing speed can save you time.
References & Studies:-
https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-time-saving-bias%2C-speed-choices-and-driving-Peer/8af243971507cdd73f0e5f2b11568880b2677c87
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-saving_bias#:~:text=The%20time%2Dsaving%20bias%20describes,increasing%20(or%20decreasing)%20speed.
http://journal.sjdm.org/10/10816/jdm10816.html
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