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Summary Previous research demonstrates that domain experts, like ordinary participant populations, are vulnerable to decision bias. Here, we examine susceptibility to bias amongst expert field scientists. Field scientists operate in less predictable environments than other experts, and feedback on the consequences of their decisions is often unclear or delayed. Thus, field scientists are a population where the findings of scientific research may be particularly vulnerable to bias. In this study, susceptibility to optimism, hindsight, and framing bias was evaluated in a group of expert field geologists using descriptive decision scenarios. Experts showed susceptibility to all three biases, and susceptibility was not influenced by years of science practice. We found no evidence that participants' vulnerability to one bias was related to their vulnerability to another bias. Our findings are broadly consistent with previous research on expertise and decision bias, demonstrating that no expert, regardless their domain experience, is immune to bias.
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Sunk‐Cost Bias and Knowing When to Terminate a Research Project
Abstract Scientific research is an open‐ended quest where success usually triumphs over failure. The tremendous success of science obscures the tendency for the non‐linear discovery process to take longer and cost more than expected. Perseverance through detours and past setbacks requires a significant commitment that is fueled by scientific optimism; the same optimism required to overcome challenges simultaneously exacerbates the very human tendency to continue a line of inquiry when the likelihood of success is minimal, the so‐called sunk‐cost bias. This Viewpoint Article shows how the psychological phenomenon of sunk‐cost bias influences medicinal, pharmaceutical, and organic chemists by comparing how the respective industrial and academic practitioners approach sunk‐cost bias; a series of interviews and illustrative quotes provide a rich trove of data to address this seldom discussed, yet potentially avoidable research cost. The concluding strategies recommended for mitigating against sunk‐cost bias should benefit not only medicinal, pharmaceutical, and organic chemists but a wide array of chemistry practitioners.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1855925
- PAR ID:
- 10371312
- Publisher / Repository:
- Wiley Blackwell (John Wiley & Sons)
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Angewandte Chemie International Edition
- Volume:
- 61
- Issue:
- 36
- ISSN:
- 1433-7851
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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