Beats Headphones Case Study

Thousands of advertisements, news reports, and social feedbacks enter the brain everyday. To cope with this constant bombardment of information, the brain will try to take shortcut strategies, like the diagnosis bias, to get to a solution faster. Swaying towards the diagnosis bias trap does not allow for full assessment of the situation because it can potentially neglect important data. This therefore would significantly “derails” the human’s ability to make decisions for their best interest; people would not be able to make most objective decisions.

People are quick to attribute values to certain items or people in order to judge whether it is worth paying attention to. This simplifies and helps people to make quick decisions to be able
However, the oversimplification comes at a cost- people do not see the situation holistically. The opportunity cost of oversimplifying our dilemmas is addressing it in an objective way using facts and evidence. In a world of heavy marketing on every goods and services, most people are swayed by attractive advertisements to buy overpriced goods. They make purchases based on what companies tell them is good, and how popular is the product is. The assumption in this value attribution is that what is popular must be good and worthwhile. The Beats headphone brand is arguably the most popular brand in its industry. They have a price tag of around $300 for one pair of headphones, but are heavily endorsed by top celebrities and athletes. While there are headphones with the similar quality specification and design that retail for a lot less than
Many people form unfair judgments towards others based on the appearance and without any logical evidence. Workplace discrimination against people with tattoos is a form of attributing value, but is based on outdated stereotypes. Common stereotypes label people with tattoos as: criminal, reckless, stupid etc. Body ink are perceived as taboo in most professional workplace. If two people have the same qualification for a management job in a big cooperate, but one is fully tattooed from neck to toe and one is has no ink, then the ink-free person would likely to be favored. For people with tattoo, they are treated unfairly because they get labeled as incapable, mostly before they even get a chance to work based on how they express their individuality through ink. The diagnosis bias could prone hiring-managers to pass on prospective and qualified employees for no justifiable reason other than being afraid of the stereotype. Stereotypes and illogical labels for people also occur frequently in schools. In an average middle or high school, kids face labels placed by peers on them everyday. For example, social kids would likely outcast the “loners” and “nerds” for being different. The labels would get stuck to the victims for years because just like adults, kids can fall into the diagnosis bias. Kids can be mean and persists to label and unwilling to consider the potential consequence it