You don't need to know about biases to debias

You don't need to know about biases to debias

Telling the subjects of cogsci experiments about a bias rarely helps them – they continue to be just as biased. YES we need Rationality techniques that produce less biased judgment, but NO we don't need to know which biases they circumvent, since the techniques should circumvent them whether or not we know of them.

If that's true, I see only two reasons to learn about biases: it's so you can re-explain them to people, to drive home how much the techniques may help. And if you're developing a new technique, of course you'll need to have a bias in mind.

I understand the research has shown that for most biases, it doesn't help to be told about it or to keep it in mind. However, it seems to me feasible that it could help to dwell more deeply on each bias, at least if you first do as a good student – approach it with many different sorts of questions, think about concrete examples, how it would show up, what sort of policy can prevent the problem, etc – and then develop a TAP (trigger-action plan) and finally train yourself to Notice the trigger. Game, set and match.

Since Knowing About Biases Can Hurt You, it seems worth doing at least this much for biases you do know about. If you're gonna know it, know it well.

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Created (2 years ago)