Index

Cognitive Biases

Projection Bias

The tendency to overestimate the degree to which future preferences and feelings will resemble current ones.

Projection bias leads to poor long-term planning because people project their current emotional state, preferences, and needs onto future situations.

Core question

Am I planning for how I will feel later, or just for how I feel right now?

Example

A founder excited about a new market opportunity signs a three-year lease on expensive office space, not accounting for how priorities and headcount may shift.

How to apply

  1. 1.Deliberately imagine your situation in different emotional and circumstantial states.
  2. 2.Build flexibility into long-term commitments where possible.
  3. 3.Consult people who are currently in the future state you are planning for.

Pitfalls

  • ·Over-engineering flexibility to the point of never committing.
  • ·Assuming current feelings are always wrong guides for the future.
  • ·Using projection bias as an excuse to avoid long-term planning entirely.

Questions

How does projection bias affect product roadmaps?

Teams design for current user needs and assume those needs will persist, missing shifts in user behavior as markets and technology evolve.

Is projection bias the same as empathy gap?

They are related. Projection bias is about projecting onto your future self. Empathy gap is about failing to account for how emotions change decisions more broadly.

Related

  • Empathy Gap

    We misjudge how emotions change our own and others' decisions.

  • Optimism Bias

    We overestimate the odds of good outcomes for ourselves.

  • Planning Fallacy

    We underestimate time, cost, and complexity.