Bias Blind Spot

What is the bias blind spot?

The bias blind spot, also called blind spot bias, is the tendency to see yourself as less susceptible to bias than other people. You can recognize a pattern in someone else while believing your own judgment is objective.

Why awareness is not enough

In the original research, participants sometimes maintained claims of objectivity after reading about a relevant bias. Knowing its name did not automatically change how they evaluated themselves.

The related introspection illusion concerns treating access to your own thoughts as reliable evidence about what caused your behavior. “I don’t feel biased” is different from checking the decision against an explicit standard.

A practical check

Examine what you did and what evidence supports it. Ask someone else to inspect the reasoning too. Feedback can expose something you missed, but neither feedback nor awareness is a guaranteed cure.

Source: The Bias Blind Spot: Perceptions of Bias in Self Versus Others.