Aileen Oeberst, Roland Imhoff
Toward Parsimony in Bias Research: A Proposed Common Framework of Belief-Consistent Information Processing for a Set of Biases
Aileen Oeberst, Roland Imhoff. 2023. (View Paper → )
One of the essential insights from psychological research is that people’s information processing is often biased. By now, a number of different biases have been identified and empirically demonstrated. Unfortunately, however, these biases have often been examined in separate lines of research, thereby precluding the recognition of shared principles. Here we argue that several—so far mostly unrelated—biases (e.g., bias blind spot, hostile media bias, egocentric/ethnocentric bias, outcome bias) can be traced back to the combination of a fundamental prior belief and humans’ tendency toward belief-consistent information processing. What varies between different biases is essentially the specific belief that guides information processing. More importantly, we propose that different biases even share the same underlying belief and differ only in the specific outcome of information processing that is assessed (i.e., the dependent variable), thus tapping into different manifestations of the same latent information processing. In other words, we propose for discussion a model that suffices to explain several different biases. We thereby suggest a more parsimonious approach compared with current theoretical explanations of these biases. We also generate novel hypotheses that follow directly from the integrative nature of our perspective.
The taxonomy of biases just got a lot more organised. The fundamental beliefs resonate with me because they all seem to be evolutionarily beneficial. I’m interested to see if future research will verify or disprove.
Fundamental belief | Bias | Brief description |
My experience is a reasonable reference. | Spotlight effect | Overestimating the extent to which (an aspect of) oneself is noticed by others |
Illusion of transparency | Overestimating the extent to which one’s own inner states are noticed by others | |
Illusory transparency of intention | Overestimating the extent to which an intention behind an ambiguous utterance (that is clear to oneself) is clear to others | |
False consensus | Overestimation of the extent to which one’s opinions, beliefs, etc., are shared | |
Social projection | Tendency to judge others as similar to oneself | |
I make correct assessments of the world. | Bias blind spot | Being convinced that mainly others succumb to biased information processing |
Hostile media bias | Partisans perceiving media reports as biased toward the other side | |
I am good. | Better-than-average effect | Overestimating one’s performance in relation to the performance of others |
Self-serving bias | Attributing one’s failures externally but one’s successes internally | |
My group is a reasonable reference. | Ethnocentric bias | Giving precedence to one’s own group (not preference) |
In-group projection | Perceiving one’s group (vs. other groups) as more typical of a shared superordinate identity | |
My group (members) is (are) good. | In-group bias/partisan bias | Seeing one’s own group in a more favorable light than other groups (e.g., morally superior, less responsible for harm) |
Ultimate attribution error | External (vs. internal) attribution for negative (vs. positive) behaviors of in-group members; reverse pattern for out-group members | |
Linguistic intergroup bias | Using more abstract (vs. concrete) words when describing positive (vs. negative) behavior of in-group members and the reverse pattern for out-group members | |
Intergroup sensitivity effect | Criticisms evaluated less defensively when made by an in-group (vs. out-group) member | |
People’s attributes (not context) shape outcomes. | Fundamental attribution error/correspondence bias | Preference for dispositional (vs. situational) attribution with regard to others |
Outcome bias | Evaluation of the quality of a decision as a function of the outcome (valence) |