Biases in snapchat: thematic analysis through the checklist by Kahneman et al. (2011)
| Bias | Definition | Example(s) | N. | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Recallability | When making predictions about future events, decisions makers are largely based on their memory of past events | “We thought Facebook wasn’t going to be able to build a mobile advertising business”, Williamson said. “We had egg on our faces because Facebook became one of the largest mobile ad publishers in the world … Snap is in a similar position”, she added. “They have a lot of expectations and they’re working really hard to build an ad tool and measurement abilities like their competitors” (Pierson, 2017) | 25 | 30 |
| Anchoring | The decision maker makes the decision, taking into consideration some initial reference data without adjusting its estimates according to the new information gained | “Market pundits have been comparing Snapchat’s IPO to Facebook’s IPO” she observed. “But investors should keep in mind that Facebook saw its share price dip below its IPO price in the months following the IPO at $38 per share in May of 2012. It took some time for Facebook to find its footing before it moved significantly higher over the next several years to today’s $130 price … The lesson here for investors is that it may take some time before Snapchat can be qualified as a success or not” (Pennsylvania Trust, 2017) | 20 | 24 |
| Confirming | The decision maker tends to elaborate only one alternative for which s/he tries to find confirming data | “The company beat Wall Street’s expectations for the second quarter, posting an 8% increase in daily active users to 203 million and better-than-expected revenue. That resulted in a healthy 12% boost. Spiegel attributed Snap’s recent good fortune to the firm's recent investments and, surprisingly, the redesign” (Hamilton, 2019) | 13 | 16 |
| Herd behavior | The decision maker does others are doing instead of using their own information or making independent decisions | “The investors are just looking around to say “I guess it sounds good because everyone’s telling me it is’” (MarketWatch, 2017) | 7 | 8 |
| Self-reinforcing | A psychological path-dependent process for which choices made are preserved and reinforced | “We will continue to put out new versions of our glasses, it’s really a question of the scale: how many of those glasses do we make; and how do we distribute them? We won’t make a very large volume of them, or distribute a large volume of them, until we’re a bit further along. But, in the meantime, we’ve actually found it’s been quite effective to continue to create new versions of our glasses, because then developers can use them to build all these experiences” (FT, 2022) | 18 | 22 |
| Total | 83 | 100 | ||
| Bias | Definition | Example(s) | N. | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| When making predictions about future events, decisions makers are largely based on their memory of past events | “We thought Facebook wasn’t going to be able to build a mobile advertising business”, Williamson said. “We had egg on our faces because Facebook became one of the largest mobile ad publishers in the world … Snap is in a similar position”, she added. “They have a lot of expectations and they’re working really hard to build an ad tool and measurement abilities like their competitors” ( | 25 | 30 | |
| The decision maker makes the decision, taking into consideration some initial reference data without adjusting its estimates according to the new information gained | “Market pundits have been comparing Snapchat’s IPO to Facebook’s IPO” she observed. “But investors should keep in mind that Facebook saw its share price dip below its IPO price in the months following the IPO at $38 per share in May of 2012. It took some time for Facebook to find its footing before it moved significantly higher over the next several years to today’s $130 price … The lesson here for investors is that it may take some time before Snapchat can be qualified as a success or not” ( | 20 | 24 | |
| The decision maker tends to elaborate only one alternative for which s/he tries to find confirming data | “The company beat Wall Street’s expectations for the second quarter, posting an 8% increase in daily active users to 203 million and better-than-expected revenue. That resulted in a healthy 12% boost. Spiegel attributed Snap’s recent good fortune to the firm's recent investments and, surprisingly, the redesign” ( | 13 | 16 | |
| The decision maker does others are doing instead of using their own information or making independent decisions | “The investors are just looking around to say “I guess it sounds good because everyone’s telling me it is’” ( | 7 | 8 | |
| A psychological path-dependent process for which choices made are preserved and reinforced | “We will continue to put out new versions of our glasses, it’s really a question of the scale: how many of those glasses do we make; and how do we distribute them? We won’t make a very large volume of them, or distribute a large volume of them, until we’re a bit further along. But, in the meantime, we’ve actually found it’s been quite effective to continue to create new versions of our glasses, because then developers can use them to build all these experiences” ( | 18 | 22 | |
Notes:
Among all those in the checklist, the table reports only the biases that emerged in our analysis