Cognitive biases and mindfulness

A brief mindfulness induction—asking people to notice three new things and compare images—reduced susceptibility to 19 out of 22 cognitive biases, including the endowment effect, overconfidence, mental accounting, anchoring, and loss aversion. Participants who received the induction also scored higher on 11 of 14 items measuring traits of novelty-seeking, novelty producing, and engagement. The induction was unrelated to the later bias questions and required no meditation, training, or statistical education. The authors argue that simply increasing momentary mindfulness can improve decision-making.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract In a study testing whether mindfulness decreases cognitive biases, respondents answered 22 standard cognitive bias questions to measure susceptibility to the endowment effect, overconfidence, mental accounting, anchoring, loss aversion, and 17 other biases, as well as the 14 questions of the Langer mindfulness survey (LMS), measuring the traits of novelty-seeking, novelty producing, and engagement. A portion of the respondents were randomly pre-assigned to a condition that induced mindfulness. On 19 of the 22 biases, those induced to be mindful were less likely to show the bias. They also scored higher on 11 of the 14 LMS questions. The method by which we induced mindfulness was unrelated to the context of the later questions, involving image comparisons and standard Langerian instructions to notice three new things. People can boost their decision-making abilities merely by increasing their mindfulness, with no need for meditation, psychological training, or statistical education.