Unit Bias at Work
Unit bias is our tendency to think that easily measurable amounts of things are automatically the right amounts of those things.
By Niklas Göke
Unit bias is our tendency to think that easily measurable amounts of things are automatically the right amounts of those things. Let’s say your favorite burger usually weighs in at 300 grams. If I make a larger burger that’s 450 grams, then cut off one-third of it, the portion will be the same — but you won’t feel nearly as satisfied eating two-thirds of a burger instead of “a whole one,” regardless of weight, calories, and nutritional value.
Unit bias affects us every day, and not just at dinner. When it comes to doing our work, we primarily use two yardsticks to measure our efforts: time and to-dos. Both are prone to unit bias. We schedule meetings for an hour and jot down “finish pitch deck,” even though the meeting might only require 43 minutes, whereas the pitch deck could take us two full days to put together.
With some awareness, however, we can also use unit bias to our advantage. Where units are often too large, for example, meetings where the goal is to make just one decision, we can default to smaller units more frequently. One 15-minute meeting that requires another 15-minute follow-up is still…
