Effects of Cognitive Biases on Distributed Team Decision Making

Abstract

Over the last several years, teams that collaborate across geographic, temporal and cultural boundaries are becoming common in the modern workplace. While these “distributed teams” provide organizations with numerous benefits from an operational and cost standpoint, there are still numerous challenges associated with them. One such issue that has yet to be explored is how well-known cognitive biases may impact distributed decision making. In this paper, we present an initial exploration of confirmation bias and its propagation in distributed team collaborations. Using the ELICIT task environment, we manipulated the order of information provided to teams. Our hypothesis was that serial order would influence the significance teams placed on information, such that they would overweigh incorrect information presented early in the task, thus inducing a team cognitive bias. Our results conformed to that hypothesis, i.e., when incorrect information was presented early, teams appeared to apply greater focus on that information in subsequent discussions, and they reported incorrect answers more often, suggesting the influence of a confirmation bias in their deliberations. These results highlight the need for continued research on team cognition and team cognitive biases, particularly in complex, distributed environments.