ABSTRACT
Many human behaviors are extremely resistant to change. Virtually all behavior is preceded by cognition on some level; therefore, any discussion about behavioral change is really about changing cognition. The problem of cognitive and affective debiasing needs serious attention. If cognitive and affective biases are the major cause of cognitive failure leading to diagnostic error, then cognitive bias mitigation (CBM) becomes a major imperative. Cognitive biases are extremely common and pervasive. They may have a significant impact on clinical reasoning and rationality. Cognitive debiasing results in the temporary or permanent removal of a bias whereas CBM is aimed at an overall reduction in the impact of biases. Many biases have multiple determinants, and it is unlikely that there is a one-to-one mapping of causes to bias, or of bias to cure. A critical feature of CBM is the ability to suppress automatic responses in the intuitive mode by decoupling from it and exerting executive override from the analytic system.
