Blinding Curiosity: Exploring Preferences for ""Blinding"" One’s Own Judgment

Abstract

Academy of Management Annual Meeting Proceedings includes abstracts of all papers and symposia presented at the annual conference, plus 6-page abridged versions of the “Best Papers” accepted for inclusion in the program (approximately 10%). Papers published in the Proceedings are abridged because presenting papers at their full length could preclude subsequent journal publication. Please contact the author(s) directly for the full papers. Blinding Curiosity: Exploring Preferences for ""Blinding"" One’s Own JudgmentSean Barrett Fath, Richard Paul Larrick and Jack SollSean Barrett FathILR at Cornell , Richard Paul LarrickDuke U. and Jack SollDuke U. Published Online:29 Jul 2020https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2020.21761abstractAboutSections ToolsDownload CitationsAdd to favoritesTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail AbstractWe investigate people's degree of preference for ""blinding"" in decision-making: purposefully restricting the information one sees in order to form a more accurate evaluation. For example, when grading her students’ papers, a professor might choose to ""blind"" herself to students’ names by anonymizing them, and thus evaluate the papers on content alone. We hypothesize that most people will consider blinding the appropriate choice in hypothetical evaluation contexts but will be less likely to choose to be blind when placed in real evaluation contexts. We find support for this hypothesis across four pre-registered studies (N = 3,273). Further, we demonstrate how choosing to see potentially biasing information (rather than to be blind to it) can make decision-makers susceptible to bias in their decisions. Finally, we present evidence that curiosity, fairness, and accuracy are competing motivations in blinding decisions and test the effectiveness of two interventions to increase people’s preference for blinding." FiguresReferencesRelatedDetails Vol. 2020, No. 1 Permissions Metrics Downloaded 0 times in the past 12 months History Published online 29 July 2020 Published in print 1 August 2020 InformationCopyright of Academy of Management Journal is the property of Academy of Management and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder’s express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.KeywordsAOM Annual Meeting Proceedings 2020