Bilinguals are less susceptible to the bias blind spot in their second language

Extant research suggests that processing information in a second language (L2) affects decision making, possibly by affecting metacognition. We hypothesized that processing in L2 will reduce the bias blind spot effect, whereby people (on average) erroneously think that they are less susceptible to biases than others. In Experiment 1, participants assessed their susceptibility and the susceptibility of others to 13 psychological and 7 economic biases, in either L1 (Polish) or L2 (English). In Experiment 2, participants assessed the 7 most severe bias blind spots from Experiment 1. We recruited 500 participants for each experiment via Prolific (832 overall, after exclusions). The main hypothesis and moderators were tested via mixed-model regressions. In Experiment 1, participants showed an overall bias blind spot, which decreased in the L2 condition, but only for psychological biases. In Experiment 2, we replicated the L2-bias blind spot attenuation effect. An exploratory analysis suggests that the effect of L2 is the result of both lower ratings of other-susceptibility and higher ratings of self-susceptibility. Our study provides unique insights on how L2 affects metacognition. We are the first to study how use of L2 can attenuate the bias blind spot. Our findings provide rare support for the psychological distancing (‘birds-eye view’) explanation for the foreign language effect. Bilinguals using L2 showed some resilience to the bias blind spot, suggesting metacognition is language-dependent. Using L2 can be considered as a debiasing technique.

Self-Control and Deliberate Ignorance

This chapter considers the relationship of individual “self-control” to epistemic behavior and ethical responsibility. The authors distinguish deliberate ignorance into two forms: partiality-preserving and impartiality-enhancing, associating the former with “epistemic diligence/negligence” and the latter with “epistemic restraint/recklessness.” As such, they argue that ethical responsibility entails three prescriptive orders of self-control. First, in the moment, the individual should reactively self-control epistemic relevance. However, research on cognitive irregularities such as the introspection illusion highlights difficulties in doing so. Second, the individual should proactively regulate information available to self and others. Here, the authors’ own studies test whether individuals will consistently guard against information contamination. They find that a personal “bias blind-spot” compromises such epistemic discretion. Given epistemic responsibility but unreliable introspection, then, the individual needs a third order of self-control. That is, in certain decision-making situations the individual is obliged to utilize institutions of epistemic justice that mandate to decision-makers information availability/restraint.

Forensic Mental Health Practitioners’ Use of Structured Risk Assessment Instruments, Views About Bias in Risk Evaluations, and Strategies to Counteract It

The use of structured risk assessment instruments (SRAIs) has increased significantly over the past decades, with research documenting variation between countries. The use of SRAIs, their perceived utility and potential for mitigating bias in forensic risk evaluations (FREs) was investigated in a survey of Dutch forensic mental health practitioners (N = 110) We found generally positive views regarding SRAI utility. Bias in FREs was of concern to respondents. We found no evidence of a bias blind spot (the belief that oneself is less prone to bias than peers/colleagues). SRAIs were rated as the most effective debiasing strategy, but respondents also endorsed introspection. There were few differences in beliefs about sources of bias or debiasing strategies between respondents who had bias training and those who had not, suggesting the need for development of effective strategies to mitigate bias and training related to bias in FREs.

Serious Efforts at Bias Reduction

As research on serious games continues to grow, we investigate the efficacy of digital games to train enhanced decision making through understanding cognitive biases. This study investigates the ability of a 30-minute digital game as compared with a 30-minute video to teach people how to recognize and mitigate three cognitive biases: fundamental attribution error, confirmation bias, and bias blind spot. We investigate the effects of character customization on learning outcomes as compared with an assigned character. We use interviews to understand the qualitative differences between the conditions. Experimental results suggest that the game was more effective at teaching and mitigating cognitive biases than was the training video. Although interviews suggest players liked avatar customization, results of the experiment indicate that avatar customization had no significant effect on learning outcomes. This research provides information future designers can use to choose the best medium and affordances for the most effective learning outcomes on cognitive processes.

From Learning to Doing: The Effects of Educating Individuals on the Pervasiveness of Bias

Despite many trying to be egalitarian in social judgment, discrimination still occurs. One reason for the discrepancy between values and behavior may be the “bias blind spot” (Pronin & Kugler, 2007), which suggests that individuals more easily recognize bias in others than they recognize in themselves. Many people believe that they are objective and impartial and, as a consequence, falsely conclude that they are immune to biased judgments based on social group memberships. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate whether providing experiential education about one‟s own biases can shift beliefs about bias and social behavior. Study 1 and 2 examined the immediate and long-term impact on beliefs about bias of an interactive lecture about how biases are an ordinary part of human thinking. Study 2 also assessed whether bias education predicts change in social judgments in which biases could be expressed and whether the components of beliefs about bias relate to other social attitudes and beliefs. Study 3 and 4 experimentally compared a shortened version of the automatic bias education to already established interventions. Finally, Studies 5-6 explored whether the shortened version of the education was effective. Results revealed that the original automatic bias education, and not the shortened version, was effective in changing people‟s beliefs about bias in the short and long-term. However, this automatic bias education was not able to influence participants‟ automatic and self-reported racial attitudes or judgments in a stereotyping task.