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Explore how psychological biases and cognitive shortcuts identified in behavioral economics research over nearly 50 years directly impact software engineering decisions and code quality in this conference talk. Learn about the parallels between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky's groundbreaking work that challenged traditional economic theory's assumption of rational decision-making and how similar irrational behaviors manifest in software development. Discover how the anchoring effect and availability bias influence program performance benchmarking and evaluation, while pro-innovation and bandwagon biases drive technical decisions that lead to blindly following technology hypes and industry gurus. Understand how the not-invented-here syndrome compels developers to create custom tools instead of adopting established standards, and examine how the framing effect causes the same problem to be solved differently depending on its presentation. Gain insights into recognizing and mitigating these cognitive biases to improve decision-making processes and enhance the overall quality of software engineering work through awareness of human psychological factors that inevitably influence coding choices.
