“Now Will it Go or Leave it for Next?”: Identification of Heuristics and Biases in the Discourse of Claimants Participating in the 12th National Conciliation Week

Abstract

Tversky and Kahneman (1981) say that the way the problem is described for decision-makers causes significant changes of preferences. This means that in the face of choice situations, instead of the subject analyzing all information and probabilities, he can rely on a limited number of heuristic principles and biases, reducing the complexity of tasks and making the process of choice simpler, therefore, the risks involved. In addition, researchers such as Dan Ariely, Richard Thaler, Cass R. Sunstein, George Loewenstein argue that it is necessary to analyze how the decision is made and not only the outcome of the decision, after all, there is no rational reason why people make decisions that damage them. In this sense, this article aimed to identify the heuristics and biases in the discourse of the participants of the 12th National Conciliation Week. For this, qualitative research was carried out by analyzing the content of the testimony of the plaintiffs during the conciliation. It was identified that excessive self-confidence, excessive optimism, mental accounts, and subjective hyperbolic discount were the recurrent biases.