On the Conditions Under Which Experience and Motivation Accentuate Bias in Intuitive Judgment

Commonsense suggests that judgmental bias should decrease as experience or motivation increases. As experience increases, the amount of relevant semantic, episodic, and procedural knowledge that is stored in memory increases, and this knowledge should help decision makers use externally provided information about the various decision options more intelligently. As motivation increases, decision makers should be more likely to search for and use a relatively large amount of judgment-relevant information and less likely to rely on simple heuristic cues as a basis for judgment. Contrary to these commonsensical notions, we review empirical evidence indicating that, under some conditions, experience and motivation can accentuate some forms of judgmental bias. We also draw parallels on the roles of experience and motivation in judgment and decision making.