Welcome to the Nexus of Ethics, Psychology, Morality, Philosophy and Health Care

Welcome to the nexus of ethics, psychology, morality, technology, health care, and philosophy

Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Researchers Find Everyone Has a Bias Blindspot

By Shilo Rea
Carnegie Mellon University
Originally published June 8, 2015

Here are two excerpt:

The most telling finding was that everyone is affected by blind spot bias — only one adult out of 661 said that he/she is more biased than the average person. However, they did find that the participants varied in the degree in which they thought they were less biased than others. This was true irrespective of whether they were actually unbiased or biased in their decision-making.

(cut)

“People seem to have no idea how biased they are. Whether a good decision-maker or a bad one, everyone thinks that they are less biased than their peers,” said Carey Morewedge, associate professor of marketing at Boston University. “This susceptibility to the bias blind spot appears to be pervasive, and is unrelated to people’s intelligence, self-esteem, and actual ability to make unbiased judgments and decisions.”

They also found that people with a high bias blind spot are those most likely to ignore the advice of peers or experts, and are least likely to learn from de-biasing training that could improve the quality of their decisions.

The entire article is here.