Beating Bias: Debiasing Strategies for Everyday Decisions
As we gain a fuller understanding of the heuristics and biases that influence our everyday decisions, so too are researchers looking for ways to combat their ill-effects. From this literature, two main strategies for combatting decision biases have emerged — detailed in the below analogy:
“Imagine a simple door that is normally held shut with a spring mechanism. If the spring is faulty (i.e., it has lost its ability to push the door shut), this door would remain open. Let this open door serve as a metaphor for a bias. There are two ways to correct this bias. One option is to simply repair the faulty spring hence directly address the cause of the bias. This would constitute a debiasing strategy. Alternatively, we can exert an opposite force of the faulty spring that keeps the door shut, and this would constitute a rebiasing strategy. Note that both strategies achieve the same end result (a shut door), but do so using very different mechanisms.” – Soman and Liu 2011 [1]
In essence, debiasing seeks to remove a bias altogether, while rebiasing seeks to swap one bias for another. [1,2]. This article focuses on lessons from the debiasing literature, and offers real world strategies for combatting bias in our daily lives.
References
Soman, Dilip, and Maggie W. Liu. “Debiasing or rebiasing? Moderating the illusion of delayed incentives.” Journal of Economic Psychology 32, no. 3 (2011), 307-316. doi:10.1016/j.joep.2010.12.005.
Larrick, Richard P. “Debiasing.” Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making (n.d.), 316-338. doi:10.1002/9780470752937.ch16.
McRaney, David, and Tali Sharot. 2017. “Optimism Bias”. Podcast. You Are Not So Smart.
Soll, Jack B., Katherine L. Milkman, and John W. Payne. “A User’s Guide to Debiasing.” The Wiley Blackwell Handbook of Judgment and Decision Making, 2015, 924-951. doi:10.1002/9781118468333.ch33.
Mitchell, Deborah J., J. Edward Russo, and Nancy Pennington. “Back to the future: Temporal perspective in the explanation of events.” Journal of Behavioral Decision Making 2, no. 1 (1989), 25-38. doi:10.1002/bdm.3960020103.
Klein, Gary. “Performing a Project Premortem.” Harvard Business Review. Last modified 2007. https://hbr.org/2007/09/performing-a-project-premortem.
Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011.
“UBS Investment Banking’s Andrea Orcel on Testing Against a Market Crash.” Business Insider. Last modified 2015. https://www.businessinsider.com/ubs-investment-banking-chief-andrea-orcel-runs-a-pre-mortem-to-test-against-a-huge-market-crash-2015-10.
Milkman, Katherine L., Todd Rogers, and Max H. Bazerman. “Harnessing Our Inner Angels and Demons: What We Have Learned About Want/Should Conflicts and How That Knowledge Can Help Us Reduce Short-Sighted Decision Making.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 3, no. 4 (2008), 324-338. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6924.2008.00083.x.
Milkman, Katherine, Julia Minson, and Kevin Volpp. “Holding the Hunger Games Hostage at the Gym: An Evaluation of Temptation Bundling.” PsycEXTRA Dataset, 2012. doi:10.1037/e513702014-057.
McKinney, Merritt. “Lie Back and Be Pampered … in the Dental Chair – Health – Special Reports – Taking the Bite Out | NBC News.” Msnbc.com. Accessed October 8, 2017. https://www.nbcnews.com/id/5327027/ns/health-special_reports/t/lie-back-be-pampered-dental-chair/#.Wd0rgBNSy1u.
Hammond, Keith. “Human judgment and social policy: irreducible uncertainty, inevitable error, unavoidable injustice.” Choice Reviews Online 34, no. 08 (1997), 34-4545-34-4545. doi:10.5860/choice.34-4545.
Allcott, Hunt. “Social norms and energy conservation.” Journal of Public Economics 95, no. 9-10 (2011), 1082-1095. doi:10.1016/j.jpubeco.2011.03.003.
Dropcountr – Dropcountr. Accessed October 10, 2017. https://dropcountr.com.
About us
We are the leading applied research & innovation consultancy
Our insights are leveraged by the most ambitious organizations
“
I was blown away with their application and translation of behavioral science into practice. They took a very complex ecosystem and created a series of interventions using an innovative mix of the latest research and creative client co-creation. I was so impressed at the final product they created, which was hugely comprehensive despite the large scope of the client being of the world's most far-reaching and best known consumer brands. I'm excited to see what we can create together in the future.
Heather McKee
BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST
GLOBAL COFFEEHOUSE CHAIN PROJECT
OUR CLIENT SUCCESS
$0M
Annual Revenue Increase
By launching a behavioral science practice at the core of the organization, we helped one of the largest insurers in North America realize $30M increase in annual revenue.
0%
Increase in Monthly Users
By redesigning North America's first national digital platform for mental health, we achieved a 52% lift in monthly users and an 83% improvement on clinical assessment.
0%
Reduction In Design Time
By designing a new process and getting buy-in from the C-Suite team, we helped one of the largest smartphone manufacturers in the world reduce software design time by 75%.
0%
Reduction in Client Drop-Off
By implementing targeted nudges based on proactive interventions, we reduced drop-off rates for 450,000 clients belonging to USA's oldest debt consolidation organizations by 46%
