E-Mail
Research from the Business School (formerly Cass) suggests that observing others' decision-making can teach people to make better decisions themselves.
The research, co-authored by Professor Irene Scopelliti, Professor of Marketing and Behavioural Science, tested the effectiveness of a new debiasing training strategy and reports first evidence that watching others make decisions can improve our own decision making.
The authors carried out three experiments, which involved participants making a set of judgements before and after a training intervention designed to improve their decision-making.
Experiment One: comparing observational learning to other common debiasing strategies
The first experiment compared observational learning to three other interventions known to reduce cognitive bias. Researchers tested participants' susceptibility to common decision-making biases across three scales, with participants receiving one of four debiasing interventions before repeating the questions: a five-minute break; a 30-minute instructional video about debiasing techniques; playing a video game for 90 minutes; and anonymously observing another participant playing the game.