Suppressing myside bias in civil litigation

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Legal Psychology
• Behavioral Economics

Background:

• Myside bias, the tendency to favor one's own beliefs when evaluating evidence and testing hypotheses, is prevalent in litigation.
• This bias leads to inflated expectations of judicial awards and decreases the likelihood of settlement in civil disputes.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effectiveness of three interventions in mitigating myside bias within simulated civil litigation settings.
• To determine if manipulating perspective-taking, dialectical reasoning, or accountability can reduce bias in award estimations and argument evaluations.

Main Methods:

• Two between-subjects experimental studies were conducted with law students (N=164 and N=181).
• Interventions included adopting the opposing side's perspective (side-switch), generating arguments for both sides (dialectical), and facing consequences for estimation errors (goal states).
• Participants' award estimates and argument ratings were compared across conditions.

Main Results:

• Baseline groups exhibited significant myside bias in both award estimates and argument ratings.
• The side-switch intervention reduced bias in argument ratings but not award estimates.
• The dialectical intervention showed limited success, reducing argument rating bias but not award estimate bias.
• The goal states intervention effectively suppressed myside bias in both award estimates and argument ratings.

Conclusions:

• Myside bias in litigation is a robust phenomenon that is challenging to overcome.
• Interventions that introduce accountability, such as the goal states condition, demonstrate potential for attenuating this bias.
• Further research into accountability-based strategies is warranted for practical application in legal settings.