Studies show that a large number of businesses have an organizational culture in which most employees are aware of some private truths within the business, yet remain silent of these facts to keep the peace at work. And whether you spoke up or not, chances are, the unethical behavior isn’t going to stop, as it’s likely an issue of organizational silence.
Omission bias stems from a basic view that one should avoid any direct cause of harm, but it’s important to note that harm that is caused in indirect ways can also be prevented.įor example, if you saw a group of leaders at work act in an unethical way, would you do something about it? Or would you choose to remain silent and allow the leaders to abuse their power? Considering these are the people who control whether you’re employed or not, do you think that taking action would end up being a critical mistake that could cost you your job?Īssuming their unethical behavior doesn’t impact you directly, you probably wouldn’t take the risk of stirring the pot. This is similar to the idea of looking but not seeing, or hearing, but not listening. Taking action is clearly more obvious than doing nothing, so it’s easier to fly under the radar, should you choose to sit back and refrain from getting into other people’s business.Ĭhoosing to avoid taking action in situations where you could reduce harm or prevent a disaster displays an implicit sense of approval. First, people often don’t want to “go out on a limb” or take risks due to a fear of either failing or doing the wrong thing and then either appearing to be foolish to onlookers or making a bad situation even worse. Let’s first talk a bit about why people prefer inaction to action. The omission bias occurs for a number of reasons and the justifications for one situation feeling less malignant than another are plentiful as well, but upon analyzing the rationale, it’s easy to see how this method of thinking is a cognitive bias. Causing harm directly is judged more harshly by others than causing that same harm indirectly–as you’re likely not the sole factor that could potentially prevent or reduce the harm. While the difference between the two situations may seem subtle, an action that directly leads to dire consequences (for example, pushing someone into traffic) seems more vengeful than not acting (omission) to prevent someone from accidentally walking into traffic and therefore saving their life.ĭata suggests that the omission bias is largely rooted in the difference between direct vs. Often, people consider harmful outcomes that were caused by action to be worse than equally harmful results caused by omission. The omission bias is the belief that harm caused by inaction is more acceptable than harm caused by action–even if the outcome is the same. Final Thoughts on Omission Bias Examples That Negatively Impact Your Life.7 Omission Bias Examples That Negatively Impact Your Life.After we define this cognitive bias, we will look at 7 examples of the omission bias that can negatively impact your life and what you can do to overcome its influence. In this article, we are going to look at an in-depth definition of the omission bias and how it can negatively impact your life. It’s true that our brains are powerful, but they’re subject to limitations, so they take shortcuts when to simplify the endless amount of information that we are subjected to each day. Cognitive biases occur when you process information incorrectly due to problems with attention, memory, attribution, and other misjudgements. Like other cognitive biases, the omission bias is an error in judgement that impacts the decisions that you make. If you believe that pushing someone into traffic would be the more harmful decision, you’re thinking in terms of the omission bias. In which of these scenarios did you make the more harmful decision? They both resulted in the same outcome–the death of a pedestrian. You catch up with them, and just as you’re about to pass them, you shove them into the busy street, watching them tumble to their demise. Now, let’s say you’re on that same sidewalk near someone who is also mindlessly strolling. As you see that person preparing to take their final step onto the road, you stand there in silence. There is some space between the two of you, but certainly not so much that you wouldn’t be able to stop them from walking into traffic. Let’s say you’re walking down the sidewalk near a busy street and you see someone who is texting and not paying attention to where they’re going.
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