Cognitive Sophistication Does Not Attenuate the Bias Blind Spot

Abstract

The so-called bias blind spot arises when people report that thinking biases are more prevalent in others than in themselves. Bias turns out to be relatively easy to recognize in the behaviors of others, but often difficult to detect in one's own judgments. Most previous research on the bias blind spot has focused on bias in the social domain. In 2 studies, we found replicable bias blind spots with respect to many of the classic cognitive biases studied in the heuristics and biases literature (e.g., Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). Further, we found that none of these bias blind spots were attenuated by measures of cognitive sophistication such as cognitive ability or thinking dispositions related to bias. If anything, a larger bias blind spot was associated with higher cognitive ability. Additional analyses indicated that being free of the bias blind spot does not help a person avoid the actual classic cognitive biases. We discuss these findings in terms of a generic dual-process theory of cognition.

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Cognitive Sophistication Does Not Attenuate the Bias Blind Spot
Richard F. West and Russell J. Meserve
James Madison University Keith E. Stanovich
University of Toronto
The so-called bias blind spot arises when people report that thinking biases are more prevalent in others
than in themselves. Bias turns out to be relatively easy to recognize in the behaviors of others, but often
difficult to detect in one’s own judgments. Most previous research on the bias blind spot has focused on
bias in the social domain. In 2 studies, we found replicable bias blind spots with respect to many of the
classic cognitive biases studied in the heuristics and biases literature (e.g., Tversky & Kahneman, 1974).
Further, we found that none of these bias blind spots were attenuated by measures of cognitive
sophistication such as cognitive ability or thinking dispositions related to bias. If anything, a larger bias
blind spot was associated with higher cognitive ability. Additional analyses indicated that being free of
the bias blind spot does not help a person avoid the actual classic cognitive biases. We discuss these
findings in terms of a generic dual-process theory of cognition.
Keywords: thinking biases, heuristics and biases, bias blind spot, cognitive ability
The psychometric tradition in psychology has long focused its
attention on individual differences in aspects of reasoning. This
attention to individual differences has not been paralleled in the
study of decision making and probabilistic reasoning. For many
years, the heuristics and biases tradition in cognitive psychology
(Tversky & Kahneman, 1974) was focused on the nature of cog-
nitive biases and how they were affected by experimental factors
(Tversky & Kahneman, 1983). The heuristics and biases tradition
was not grounded in a concern for individual differences. In recent
years this focus has shifted. Researchers have attempted to under-
stand why some individuals show persistent biases on certain tasks
and why others do not.
There is substantial evidence indicating that errors on decision-
making and probabilistic reasoning tasks are not just performance
errors—that is, that the variability in performance is systematic
and not random error (Stanovich & West, 1998, 1999, 2000; West,
Toplak, & Stanovich, 2008). This systematic variance has been
associated with certain individual difference variables. For exam-
ple, thinking dispositions such as need for cognition and actively
open-minded thinking have been associated with belief bias and
the magnitude of framing effects (Smith & Levin, 1996; West et
al., 2008). Individuals higher in need for cognition and actively
open-minded thinking displayed less belief bias and less suscep-
tibility to framing effects. Intelligence has been related to proba-
bilistic reasoning performance (Bruine de Bruin, Parker, & Fis-
chhoff, 2007; Chiesi, Primi, & Morsanyi, 2011; Del Missier,
Mäntyla, & Bruine de Bruin, 2010, 2011; Toplak, West, & Stanov-
ich, 2011; West & Stanovich, 2003). However, intelligence does
not always correlate with information-processing biases. Myside
bias and anchoring effects have been shown to be fairly indepen-
dent of intelligence in university samples (Stanovich & West,
2007, 2008a, 2008b). Stanovich and West (2008b) have developed
a preliminary taxonomy of tasks and biases that do and do not
correlate with intelligence—largely based on the extent to which
overcoming the bias depends on inhibition and executive control.
One of the more potent predictors of performance on heuristics
and biases tasks is the extremely short (three items) Cognitive
Reflection Test (CRT) introduced into the journal literature by
Frederick (2005). The task is designed to measure the tendency to
override a prepotent response alternative that is incorrect and to
engage in further reflection that leads to the correct response.
When they answer the three seemingly simple problems, many
people show a characteristic that is common to many reasoning
errors. They behave like cognitive misers (Dawes, 1976; Taylor,
1981; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). That is, they give the first
response that comes to mind. The three problems on the CRT (see
Method section) seem at first glance to be similar to the well-
known insight problems in the problem-solving literature, but they
in fact display a critical difference. Classic insight problems (see
Gilhooly & Fioratou, 2009; Gilhooly & Murphy, 2005) do not
usually trigger an attractive alternative response. Instead the par-
ticipant sits lost in thought trying to reframe the problem correctly,
as in, for example, the classic nine dot problem. The three prob-
lems on the CRT are of interest to researchers working in the
heuristics and biases tradition because a strong alternative re-
sponse is initially primed and then must be overridden (Kahneman,
2011). Kahneman (2011; Kahneman & Frederick, 2002) made it
clear that this aspect of the psychology of heuristics and biases
tasks fits in nicely with currently popular dual-process frameworks
(Evans, 2008, 2010; Evans & Frankish, 2009; Lieberman, 2007,
2009; Stanovich, 1999, 2009, 2011).
Frederick (2005) observed that with as few as three items, his
CRT could predict performance on measures of temporal discount-
This article was published Online First June 4, 2012.
Richard F. West and Russell J. Meserve, Department of Graduate
Psychology, James Madison University; Keith E. Stanovich, Department of
Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto,
Toronto, Canada.
This research was supported by the Canada Research Chairs program
and the Grawemeyer Award in Education to Keith E. Stanovich.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Richard
F. West, Department of Graduate Psychology, James Madison University,
800 South Main Street, Harrisonburg, VA 22807. E-mail: westrf@jmu.edu
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology © 2012 American Psychological Association
2012, Vol. 103, No. 3, 506–519 0022-3514/12/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0028857
506
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