Effects of personal characteristics on susceptibility to decision bias: A literature study

Abstract

Cognitive biases and heuristics are pervasive simplifications and distortions in judgement and reasoning that systematically affect human decision making. Knowledge in this area may enable us to foresee and reduce detrimental effects of biases or to influence others more effectively. We therefore performed a literature study to assess the influence of personal characteristics (cognitive abilities, expertise, personality, cultural background) on the occurrence of cognitive biases. We found that each of the aforementioned factors can affect cognitive biases, though not much is known about the effects of culture. Also, factors that appear to reduce a cognitive bias may in fact mitigate (suppress or override) its behavioral effect rather than preventing the bias from occurring at all. The general picture that arises is that bias susceptibility and the occurrence of biases depend on thinking style (heuristic versus deliberate), where thinking style is associated with an individual's personal characteristics. In general, biases are reduced when a deliberate (analytical) thinking style is applied. However, whether a specific (heuristic or deliberate) thinking style actually reduces or enhances a given type of bias also depends on the context.