210 Understanding Intuitive Decision Making
Fortunately for the professional, the same aids to audience decision making—such as those
described in Chapter 4—that make it easy for the audience to process a professional’s doc-
uments and presentations also bias the audience, usually in the professional’s favor. When
audiences use information heuristically, they choose the alternative presented in the style or
format that:
- is easiest to perceive;^8
- is most attention getting;^9
- is easiest to comprehend;^10
- makes activating a schema easy;^11
- makes acquiring information easy;^12
- makes integrating information easy.^13
Such stylistic techniques do not bias all audience members equally. Expert audience members
are less likely than novices to rely on heuristics and thus are less susceptible to bias when perform-
ing realistic tasks in their domain of expertise.^14 For example, medical residents are less susceptible
to the sunk-cost bias, less likely to “throw good money after bad,” when making medical deci-
sions than when making nonmedical decisions.^15 Similarly, accountants are less susceptible to bias
when making accounting than nonaccounting decisions.^16 Experienced bank loan offi cers rely
on heuristics only rarely when making commercial loan decisions, less often than they themselves
believe.^17 Nonetheless, some experts appear to rely on heuristics routinely. For example, research
indicates that federal judges routinely use heuristics such as anchoring, framing, and representative-
ness in making their judicial decisions.^18
Whereas expertise tends to mitigate the audience’s use of heuristics and their susceptibility to
bias, being part of a group often accentuates heuristic use and susceptibility to bias.^19 For example,
groups tend to accentuate the bias of individual audience members to neglect base-rate infor-
mation.^20 Groups also display a more pronounced optimism bias^21 and show more unrealistic
overconfi dence than individual members of the group.^22
Groups amplify other biases as well. Groups are persuaded by sunk-cost arguments even when
only a minority of group members mentions them as a reason for their decision.^23 Positive/nega-
tive framing effects (e.g., arguing for a medical procedure in terms of lives saved versus lives lost) at
the group level tend to be stronger than those at the individual level.^24 For example, groups given
the “lives lost” version of the Asian disease problem^25 choose the riskier alternative even when a
majority of the members initially favor the less risky alternative.^26 Groups also amplify, rather than
weaken, reliance on the representativeness heuristic.^27 Thus, they amplify the tendency of individu-
als to use stereotypes when making evaluations.^28
Groups are just as susceptible as individuals to other biases. Groups are just as susceptible as
individuals to anchoring-related biases.^29 Groups are just as susceptible as individuals to the con-
fi rmation bias. For example, groups of managers prefer information that confi rms the majority’s
initial decision over information that contradicts it.^30 Groups are equally susceptible to the con-
junctive fallacy: Instead of calculating the correct response, they simply exchange information
concerning their individual judgments and endorse the judgment of a single, oftentimes incorrect,
group member.^31
Some biased information processing is unique to groups. Groups may be prone to take courses
of action about which all members secretly disagree.^32 A group bias termed pluralistic ignorance is
caused by group members’ tendency to underestimate the extent to which other group mem-
bers share their concerns.^33 For example, outside board members are often reluctant to express