This article provides a broad perspective into different biases that 'play and impact' people's decision making and behavior. In most of the cases, the responses are a reflection of what one "should" against what one "wants" to do which explains the classic conflict between intentions and behavior. One solution to the conflict is to activate the 'want' cells when thinking about 'should' actions.
In general, the behaviors can be bucketed into three types of biases: Escalation of commitment, Moral Licensing and Moral Compensation.
Escalation of commitment happens when one has committed to a certain behavior in the first few instances and then continues to do so to justify the previous actions. The Satyam scandal is a perfect example of escalation of commitment.
Moral Licensing is a behavior through which one tries to justify a morally incorrect behavior by issuing a license to self (which stems from one's previous morally correct decisions).
Moral Compensation is a way of justifying morally wrong decisions by committing to a compensating behavior in the future.
The idea that should click is the understanding of such behavioral biases and the measures that can be adopted to handle the dilemmas when planning to join a new organization. One of the solution is to rehearse your reactions for all such possible situational conflicts and to use your network to take second opinions. The sources of such information can be
- People who have worked or are working in the organization
- Your past experience
- Alums or peers who have worked in the industry
- Secondary research - Google, Glassdoor.com etc.
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