The Influence of Judgmental Biases in Teams vs. Individuals
Presentation Type
Poster
Faculty Advisor
Michael Bixter
Access Type
Event
Start Date
26-4-2024 12:45 PM
End Date
26-4-2024 1:44 PM
Description
Judgmental biases refer to the cognitive shortcuts individuals rely on to make decisions under ambiguous and time-scarce environments, which often result in violations of normative probability axioms (e.g., perceiving the probability of one event < probability of two events occurring together). Historically, judgmental bias research has systematically prioritized individual decision making contexts by studying how judgments are elicited in isolation. As a result, much is left unclear about the possible role of judgmental biases at the team level and the group tendencies (e.g., groupthink, group polarization) that amplify or attenuate their effects when converging on a final judgment. We conducted a two part exploratory investigation to examine potential differences in susceptibility to traditional judgmental biases in a series of hypothetical decision scenarios. Decision preferences were collected across 12 classic judgmental biases. Study 1 generally showed no differences between team and individual performance on 10 out of 12 biases, except for greater susceptibility to the framing effect bias among individuals and belief bias among teams. Study 2 replicated this overall trend and utilized a three-block, repeated measures design by exposing teams and individuals to scenarios measuring the same 12 judgmental biases across three blocks (36 items total). The results suggest that individual susceptibility to bias remains largely unchanged even after collaboration with another decision maker. Implications for future research and applications to organizational decision making are discussed. Keywords: judgmental biases, team, decision, collaboration
The Influence of Judgmental Biases in Teams vs. Individuals
Judgmental biases refer to the cognitive shortcuts individuals rely on to make decisions under ambiguous and time-scarce environments, which often result in violations of normative probability axioms (e.g., perceiving the probability of one event < probability of two events occurring together). Historically, judgmental bias research has systematically prioritized individual decision making contexts by studying how judgments are elicited in isolation. As a result, much is left unclear about the possible role of judgmental biases at the team level and the group tendencies (e.g., groupthink, group polarization) that amplify or attenuate their effects when converging on a final judgment. We conducted a two part exploratory investigation to examine potential differences in susceptibility to traditional judgmental biases in a series of hypothetical decision scenarios. Decision preferences were collected across 12 classic judgmental biases. Study 1 generally showed no differences between team and individual performance on 10 out of 12 biases, except for greater susceptibility to the framing effect bias among individuals and belief bias among teams. Study 2 replicated this overall trend and utilized a three-block, repeated measures design by exposing teams and individuals to scenarios measuring the same 12 judgmental biases across three blocks (36 items total). The results suggest that individual susceptibility to bias remains largely unchanged even after collaboration with another decision maker. Implications for future research and applications to organizational decision making are discussed. Keywords: judgmental biases, team, decision, collaboration