Combating Myside Bias in Scientific Thinking: A Special Challenge for the Gifted

Abstract

ABSTRACT Myside bias, a form of confirmation bias, is a major impediment to scientific thinking. It results in scientists, potential scientists, and consumers of science drawing conclusions that do not follow from data but rather that follow from prior scientific, ideological beliefs. Gifted people are at least as susceptible to these biases as are other people. We propose in this article a set of techniques for combating such bias. In particular, we suggest that gifted (and other) individuals seeking to draw scientific conclusions put themselves in the place of various individuals involved in scientific refereeing—in particular, of reviewers with varying prior predispositions (e.g., reviewers with different paradigmatic worldviews and reviewers who are picayune critics) and journal editors. Through these techniques, gifted individuals may spare themselves embarrassments that they might otherwise encounter, not despite, but even because of their own superior intellects.