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Cited by 10Decision-Making and Behavioral EconomicsSocial and Intergroup PsychologyPsychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment

Hypothesized drivers of the bias blind spot—cognitive sophistication, introspection bias, and conversational processes

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Mandel, David R., Collins, Robert N., Walker, Alexander C., Fugelsang, Jonathan A., Risko, Evan F.·2022·Judgment and Decision Making
DOI 10.1017/s1930297500009475
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Abstract

Individuals often assess themselves as being less susceptible to common biases compared to others. This bias blind spot (BBS) is thought to represent a metacognitive error. In this research, we tested three explanations for the effect: The cognitive sophistication hypothesis posits that individuals who display the BBS more strongly are actually less biased than others. The introspection bias hypothesis posits that the BBS occurs because people rely on introspection more when assessing themselves compared to others. The conversational processes hypothesis posits that the effect is largely a consequence of the pragmatic aspects of the experimental situation rather than true metacognitive error. In two experiments (N = 1057) examining 18 social/motivational and cognitive biases, there was strong evidence of the BBS. Among the three hypotheses examined, the conversational processes hypothesis attracted the greatest support, thus raising questions about the extent to which the BBS is a metacognitive effect.

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  • Unfamiliar neutral targets are already perceived as substantially more biased than the self.

    “Moreover, because unfamiliar neutral targets are already perceived as substantially more biased than the self (Mandel et al., 2022; Pronin et al., 2002), both unfamiliarity and negative affect may lead to similar conclusions—that a target other is considerably more biased than oneself.”

    From Everyone I Don’t Like Is Biased: Affective Evaluations and the Bias Blind Spot (2026) · cites this paper as Mandel et al., 2022

    The Bias blind spot section reports that participants rated the average survey respondent as more susceptible to bias than themselves, with a medium overall effect. But the target was an average respondent, not a specifically unfamiliar, neutral individual; the Testing explanatory hypotheses section describes comparisons with specific others as a possibility for future research. The source therefore supports the self–other bias difference, but not that distinction about the target. (LLM, conf=0.84)

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  • The Experiment 1 sample size of 660 was chosen based on prior work and sensitivity power analyses showing at least 80% power to detect a minimum effect size of = .113 for mixed ANOVAs and d = 0.28 for follow-up independent samples t-tests.

    “This sample size was chosen on the basis of prior work on the bias blind spot (Mandel et al., 2022) with sensitivity power analyses using G*Power (Faul et al., 2007) revealing that this sample provided at least 80% power to detect a minimum effect size of = .113 for the conducted mixed ANOVAs and d = 0.28 for follow-up independent samples t-tests.”

    From Everyone I Don’t Like Is Biased: Affective Evaluations and the Bias Blind Spot (2026) · cites this paper as Mandel et al., 2022

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Cited by

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Authors
Mandel, D. R., Collins, R. N., Walker, A. C., Fugelsang, J. A., & Risko, E. F.
Affiliations
Defence Research and Development Canada (CA)
Corresponding author
Mandel, David R.
ORCID
Venue
Judgment and Decision Making
Publisher
Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Published
2022-11
Volume
17
Issue
6
Pages
1392-1421
ISSN
1930-2975 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1017/s1930297500009475
OpenAlex
W4313423669
Cited by
10
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 2 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 1 · 2023: 5
FWCI
1.36
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Judgment and Decision Making (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
  • PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
Keywords
bias blind spot, metacognition, cognitive sophistication, cognitive biases, motivational biases, social bias

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