Information Technology Support For Debiasing Group Judgments: An Empirical Evaluation

Human judgments, made by either individuals or groups, have been found to contain biases. One of the most prevalent biases identified is the availability bias, associated with the phenomenon that events which are more available to human memory are correspondingly judged as occurring more frequently or as being more important. This paper is concerned with how to reduce the availability bias in the group context. It reports an experiment in which two computer-based support facilities, electronic brainstorming and electronic mail, were tested for their contributions to reducing the availability bias. A 2 x 2 experimental design was used: electronic brainstorming (available or not) and communication mode (electronic or verbal). Forty teams of three members each were asked to work on a task involving the rating of the importance of a number of items associated with a secretary's task. Both electronic brainstorming and electronic communication helped reduce the availability bias. In both cases, the reduction in bias was due to increased attention paid to items that were found to have low availability in the absence of these support tools. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.