Availability Heuristic Research Articles

A case of availability bias for COVID-19 causing scrub typhus diagnostic errors.

Although patients with scrub typhus develop a maculopapular rash all over the body, patients with COVID-19may also show a similar rash. At the first visit, we did not fully inspect his trunk and extremities under his clothes. Although scrub typhus and COVID-19have some similar symptoms, an eschar is a characteristic symptom of the former, and careful inspection is important to distinguish between the diseases.

Eliciting Model Structures for Multivariate Probabilistic Risk Analysis

Notionally objective probabilistic risk models, built around ideas of cause and effect, are used to predict impacts and evaluate trade-offs. In this paper, we focus on the use of expert judgement to fill gaps left by insufficient data and understanding. Psychological and contextual phenomena such as anchoring, availability bias, confirmation bias and overconfidence are pervasive and have powerful effects on individual judgements. Research across a range of fields has found that groups have access to more diverse information and ways of thinking about problems, and routinely outperform credentialled individuals on judgement and prediction tasks. In structured group elicitation, individuals make initial independent judgements, opinions are respected, participants consider the judgements made by others, and they may have the opportunity to reconsider and revise their initial estimates. Estimates may be aggregated using behavioural, mathematical or combined approaches. In contrast, mathematical modelers have been slower to accept that the host of psychological frailties and contextual biases that afflict judgements about parameters and events may also influence model assumptions and structures. Few, if any, quantitative risk analyses embrace sources of uncertainty comprehensively. However, several recent innovations aim to anticipate behavioural and social biases in model construction and to mitigate their effects. In this paper, we outline approaches to eliciting and combining alternative ideas of cause and effect. We discuss the translation of ideas into equations and assumptions, assessing the potential for psychological and social factors to affect the construction of models. We outline the strengths and weaknesses of recent advances in structured, group-based model construction that may accommodate a variety of understandings about cause and effect.

Diet and physical activity in pregnancy to prevent gestational diabetes: a protocol for an individual participant data (IPD) meta-analysis on the differential effects of interventions with economic evaluation

IntroductionMothers with gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) are at increased risk of pregnancy-related complications and developing type 2 diabetes after delivery. Diet and physical activity-based interventions may prevent GDM, but variations...

Cognitive heuristics and risk evaluation in crisis fraud

PurposeThe recent COVID-19 crisis has been followed by an epidemic of fraud. This study aims to evaluate cases of COVID-19-related fraud to identify cognitive heuristics that influence decision-making under the pressure of crisis conditions.Design/methodology/approachAn analysis of fraud advisories and cases relating to COVID-19 is conducted and matched against various types of cognitive heuristics to explain their influence on victims of crisis fraud.FindingsThe affect, availability, cue-familiarity, representativeness and scarcity heuristics are identified and explained to have a substantial influence on risk evaluations of crisis fraud.Originality/valueThe findings from this study can help individuals avoid fraud victimisation by helping them understand psychological vulnerabilities that they may be unaware of under the pressure of crisis conditions.

A Novel Method for Using Small Unoccupied Aerial Vehicles to Survey Wildlife Species and Model Their Density Distribution

There is growing interest from research and conservation groups in the potential for using small unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs; <2 kg) to conduct wildlife surveys because they are affordable, easy to use, readily available and reliable. However, limitations such as short flight endurance, and in many situations, aviation regulations, have constrained the use of small UAVs in survey applications. Thus, there is a need to refine survey methods adapted to small UAVs that conform to standard operations within aviation law. We developed a novel survey approach based on a grid sampling design using two multirotor UAVs (Phantom 4 Pros) flying simultaneously, within visual line of sight, from our vessel base-station. We used this approach to assess the fine-scale distribution and abundance of dugongs (Dugong dugon) in the remote waters of the Pilbara, Western Australia during three field seasons across 2 years. We surveyed 64 non-overlapping survey cells in random order one or more times and obtained complete image coverage of each surveyed cell of our 31 km2 survey area. Our sampling design maximizes sampling effort while limiting survey time by surveying four cells, two at a time, from one location. Overall, we conducted 240 flights with up to 17 flights per day (mean = 14 flights per day) and could obtain complete coverage of up to 11.36 km2per day. A total of 149 dugongs were sighted within the 50,482 images which we manually reviewed. Spatially-explicit models of dugong density distribution (corrected for availability and perception bias) were produced using general additive models to identify areas more or less used by dugongs (range of corrected dugong densities across all field season = 0.002–1.79 dugongs per 0.04 km2). Dugong abundance estimates ranged from 47 individuals in June 2019 (CV = 0.17) to 103 individuals in May 2018 (CV = 0.36). Our method, which proved convincing in a real-word application by its feasibility, ease of implementation, and achievable surface coverage has the potential to be used in a wide range of applications from community-based local-scale surveys, to long-term repeated/intensive surveys, and impact assessments and environmental monitoring studies.

The relationship between time to diagnose and diagnostic accuracy among internal medicine residents: a randomized experiment

BackgroundDiagnostic errors have been attributed to cognitive biases (reasoning shortcuts), which are thought to result from fast reasoning. Suggested solutions include slowing down the reasoning process. However, slower reasoning is not necessarily more accurate than faster reasoning. In this study, we studied the relationship between time to diagnose and diagnostic accuracy.MethodsWe conducted a multi-center within-subjects experiment where we prospectively induced availability bias (using Mamede et al.’s methodology) in 117 internal medicine residents. Subsequently, residents diagnosed cases that resembled those bias cases but had another correct diagnosis. We determined whether residents were correct, incorrect due to bias (i.e. they provided the diagnosis induced by availability bias) or due to other causes (i.e. they provided another incorrect diagnosis) and compared time to diagnose.ResultsWe did not successfully induce bias: no significant effect of availability bias was found. Therefore, we compared correct diagnoses to all incorrect diagnoses. Residents reached correct diagnoses faster than incorrect diagnoses (115 s vs. 129 s, p < .001). Exploratory analyses of cases where bias was induced showed a trend of time to diagnose for bias diagnoses to be more similar to correct diagnoses (115 s vs 115 s, p = .971) than to other errors (115 s vs 136 s, p = .082).ConclusionsWe showed that correct diagnoses were made faster than incorrect diagnoses, even within subjects. Errors due to availability bias may be different: exploratory analyses suggest a trend that biased cases were diagnosed faster than incorrect diagnoses. The hypothesis that fast reasoning leads to diagnostic errors should be revisited, but more research into the characteristics of cognitive biases is important because they may be different from other causes of diagnostic errors.

The Influence of Cognitive Heuristics and Biases on Palliative Social Workers’ Support of Patient and Caregiver Decision Making: The Pulse Oximeter Buying Trend during the COVID-19 Pandemic

A phenomenon occurring early in the pandemic involving media-based recommendations of pulse oximeters, devices purported to detect a dangerous Covid-19 symptom, invites attention to effects of decision-making shortcuts, or cognitive heuristics, and associated cognitive biases or errors, on patient/caregiver healthcare decisions. Heuristics also affect palliative/medical social workers’ recommendations to patients/caregivers. This article looks at availability, confirmation, affect, false consensus and framing biases, and suggestions for debiasing decision making. Implications for other healthcare decisions are considered.

The association between cognitive biases and the quality of strategic decision making: Evidence from Jordanian banks

Excellence in strategic decision making is the driving force behind successful strategy adoption and implementation. However, it is becoming more and more complex as businesses emerge in unpredictable environments and conditions. The main objective of this study is to investigate the impact of cognitive bias and its dimensions (the illusion of control, prior hypothesis bias, escalating commitment bias and representativeness, and availability bias) on strategic decision making. In terms of methodology, the study used a random sampling technique. The study applied a survey as a research tool distributed among 138 bankers (employees at the managerial level) in managerial and administrative positions. Further, descriptive analysis and regression analysis were used to analyze the data and test hypotheses. The results show a positive and significant effect of the illusion of control and representativeness. The results show that the illusion of control, prior hypothesis bias, escalating commitment bias and representativeness, and availability bias significantly impact the strategic decision-making in Jordanian banks. It is concluded that the null hypothesis will be accepted and, therefore, the alternative hypothesis will be rejected based on the significant levels for the primary and secondary hypotheses. The factors of the escalating commitment bias, the availability bias, and the reasoning by analogy were not significant. Finally, the study recommends developing more literature on integrating psychology and discrimination and applying the research to different industries and managerial levels.

Optimization of China’s Financial Advertising Regulation System: Based on Behavioral Finance and EU Experience

With the rapid development of Internet finance, the volume of China’s financial advertising has exploded. On the one hand, the problems caused by false and misleading information contained in some financial advertising have already affected the stability of China’s financial market. On the other hand, China’s current regulation system has inherent flaws. Under the framework of protecting financial consumers’ rights and interests, it is combined with the traditional false advertising regulation system and premised on sellers’ duties of appropriateness and informing. However, its theoretical premise-rational investors-is rocky, which has already been challenged by the behavioral finance theory: While making investment decisions, investors are tend to be affected by their behavioral deviations. The heuristics and behavioral deviations of the typical retail investors are often exploited by financial advertising, including representativeness bias, availability bias, framing bias, anchoring bias, and affection bias. Therefore, the system, which is based on the rational investor theory and centered on the proper fulfillment of information disclosure obligations, is flawed by nature and cannot fundamentally solve the problem of regulating financial advertising which takes advantage of investors’ limited rationality and behavioral deviations. It is, thereby, necessary to establish a specialized financial advertising regulation system , so as to protect the stable operation of the financial market and the legitimate interests of financial consumers. In practice, taking advantage of investors’ limited rationality and behavioral deviations is the common problem of financial advertising in China and the EU. In order to transform the theoretical achievements of behavioral finance into practical system effectiveness, China may learn from the practical regulation experience of the EU’s New Markets in Financial Instruments Directive in this regard. In terms of the optimization idea of the regulation system, an informed financial advertising regulation model should be established by taking investors’ psychology and information processing mode into consideration. In terms of the optimization path of the regulation system, the basic requirements of financial advertising information should be neutral, clear and non-misleading. In addition, specific regulation systems should be further formulated for typical problems in practice, including the regulation system of financial advertising information involving historical performance, future performance forecasting, comparative financial advertising, and taking advantage of investors’ affection bias.

توسيط تقييم البدائل الاستثمارية في العلاقة بين التحيزات السلوکية واتخاذ قرار الاستثمار بالتطبيق على الشرکات المصرية المدرجة في البورصة المصرية

ملخص البحث :تناول الباحثون في هذا البحث دور تقييم البدائل الاستثمارية في العلاقة بين التحيزات السلوکية واتخاذ قرار الاستثمار بالتطبيق على الشرکات المصرية المدرجة في البورصة المصرية وتم تصميم نموذج مقترح للدراسة لاختبار العلاقة بين متغيرات الدراسة. کما تم تصميم قائمة استقصاء ، واستخدم البرنامج الإحصائي SPSS وAMOS لتحليل العلاقات المباشرة وغير المباشرة بين المتغيرات. وبلغ حجم العينة (329) مفردة وعدد القوائم المستردة والصحيحة (301) قائمة بنسبة استجابة ( 91%) من إجمالي حجم عينة البحث. وقد أظهرت نتائج التحليل الإحصائي وجود علاقة ارتباط معنوية ايجابية بين التحيزات السلوکية واتخاذ قرار الاستثمار وتقييم البدائل الاستثمارية . وتوصل البحث الى وجود تأثير معنوي إيجابي لبعض أبعاد التحيزات السلوکية على بعدي تقييم البدائل الاستثمارية في الشرکات محل الدراسة ، کما توصل البحث إلى وجود تأثير معنوي إيجابي لبعض من التحيزات السلوکية و اتخاذ قرار الاستثمار کذلک توصل البحث إلى وجود تأثير معنوي إيجابي بين تقييم بدائل الاستثمار واتخاذ قرار الاستثمار.وتوصل البحث إلى وجود دور وسيط إيجابي في العلاقة بين التحيزات السلوکية واتخاذ قرار الاستثمار.ومن أهم توصيات البحث وجوب زيادة الثقافة المالية لمتخذي القرار وذلک للتغلب على التحيزات السلوکية التي تؤثر عليهم عند اتخاذ قرار الاستثمار. Abstract: The researchers examined role of the investment alternatives evaluation in the relationship between Behavioral biases and investment decision taking applied to Egyptian listed companies. A proposed model was designed to test the relationship between the research variables. Therefore, a questionnaire survey was conducted and then directed to the Investment decision takers at their companies. In order to analyze the data of the research, the statistical programs SPSS and AMOS were used, and then calculate Pearson correlation coefficients and the direct and indirect relationships. The sample size was (329) and the number of recovered and correct lists was (301) with (91%) response rate of the total size of the sample. The Findings revealed a positive significant correlation between the variables of the study. It also confirmed the existence of a direct positive significant effect of some behavioral biases on both estimating cash flows and determining the discount rate. The results proved that all dimensions of behavioral biases that were studied except Availability Bias did not significantly affect indirectly on the investment decision-making when mediating the Estimation of cash flows. The results also demonstrated that all the dimensions of the behavioral biases that were studied did not significantly indirectly affect the investment decision-making when mediating the determination of the discount rate. One of the most important recommendations of the research is the necessity of increasing the financial knowledge of decision-makers in order to overcome the behavioral biases that affect them when making an investment decision.

Cognitive Bias Affecting Decision-Making in the Legal Process

Several empirical research studies have shown that cognitive bias can unconsciously distort inferences and interpretations made by judges either at the hearing, ruling or sentencing stage of a court trial and this may result in miscarriages of justice. This article examines how cognitive heuristics affects judicial decision-making with seven common manifestations of heuristics such as availability heuristics, confirmation bias, egocentric bias, anchoring, hindsight bias, framing and representativeness. This article contends that the different manifestations of heuristics pose a potentially serious risk to the quality and objectivity of any criminal case, despite the professional legal training and experience of judges and magistrates. Therefore, suggestions on how best to avoid and minimise the effects of cognitive heuristics, especially within South African courts are proffered. These include creating awareness raising, cross-examination and replacement.

Heuristics and medical errors. Part 2: How to make better medical decisions

This publication is a continuation of the article published in the 4th issue of the journal Russian family doctor for 2020 Heuristics, language and medical errors, which described the ways of making medical decisions that can lead to errors in patient management tactics, in particular affect of heuristics / visceral bias, attribution error, frame of reference, availability bias, one-word-one-meaning-fallacy. This article discusses additional sources of diagnostic error, including diagnosis momentum, confirmation bias, representativeness, and premature closure also the conflict that arises from diagnostic uncertainty is discussed. All errors in the tactics and the diagnostic process are illustrated by clinical cases from the personal practice of the author of the article.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS AND INVESTMENT DECISIONS IN THE NIGERIA CAPITAL MARKET

This study examines Behavioral Factors and Investment Decision Making in the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE). Thus, the research question is what are the psychological factors affecting investment decisions in the Nigerian capital market. A structured questionnaire was used in collecting data and it was able to collect data from 75 investors with the application of a convenient sampling method. Using overconfidence bias, availability bias, conservatism, and herding effect to define the most important behavioral element affecting investment decision making by investors in the Nigerian. Multiple regression analysis was used as the key methodological method for evaluating the research hypothesis, whereas the internal consistency of the questionnaire calculated from Cronbach's alpha on all variables showed values greater than 0.7 with a sufficient level of reliability. The primary beneficiary group would be the buyers on the stock market who would be educated enough about the effect of their own behavioral influences on their stock market decision making. The knowledge would be useful in making optimal investment decisions and avoiding unfavorable decisions to increase their resources. In turn, it will be helpful to policymakers and stock market regulators to help them understand the position of behavioral influences inherited in consumer decision-making and that may be associated with the need for stock market brokers to update their customer's trading practices to a higher level. The findings of this study suggest that overconfidence, availability bias, and herding impact demonstrated a positive significant relationship with NSE investment decision-making except conservatism which showed a negative relationship with investment decision-making but at 0.01 levels statistically significant. On the basis of the results, it can be generalized that the most prevalent factors affecting investor investment decision taking in NSE are overconfidence, availability bias, and herding influence.

The impact of heuristic biases on investors’ investment decision in Pakistan stock market: moderating role of long term orientation

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of heuristic biases, namely, availability bias and representativeness bias on investors’ investment decisions in the Pakistan stock exchange, as well as the moderating role of long-term orientation.Design/methodology/approachUsing a structured questionnaire, a total of 374 responses have been collected from individual investors trading in PSX. The relationship was tested by applying the partial least square structural equation model using SmartPLS 3.2.2. Further, Henseler and Chin’s (2010) product indicator approach for moderation analysis was applied to the data set.FindingsThe results revealed that availability bias and representativeness bias have a significant and positive influence on the investment decisions of investors. Furthermore, a significant moderating effect of long term orientation on the effect of representativeness bias on investment decision is observed. This suggests that investors’ long term orientation weaken the effect of representativeness bias on investment decision. However, no significant moderating effect was observed for availability bias.Originality/valueThe paper provides novel insights on the role of heuristic-driven biases on the investment decisions of individual investors in the stock market. Particularly, it enhanced the understanding of behavioral aspects of investment decision-making in an emerging market.

The Existence of Behavioral Biases and Personality Traits in Explaining the Effect of Fundamental and Technical Analysis to Investment Performance in Indonesia Stock Exchange

Rational investors focus on the fundamental and technical analysis in their investment decisions. In fundamental analysis, they consider economic conditions, industry analysis, and company analysis if they use a top-down approach, and vice versa if they use a bottom-up approach. Technical analysis focuses on the historical movement of stock price to predict the future price by using the pattern of a chart. However, in modern finance, investors are not fully rational as they are also affected by the psychological factors when making their investment decisions. These psychological factors then create behavioral biases, which becomes the basic assumption of behavioral finance This research is aimed at investigating the role of availability bias and disposition effect as behavioral biases that make investors irrational in their behaviors and whether it is supported by the Big Five Personality Traits, which include openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism (OCEAN). It needs to explore the influence of fundamental analysis and technical analysis on investment performance with the existence of behavioral biases as mediating variable and personality traits as a moderating variable between fundamental analysis and behavioral biases.

Do my feelings fit the diagnosis? Avoiding misdiagnoses in psychosomatic consultation services.

Misdiagnoses are a major concern with far-reaching consequences, which have rarely been studied systematically. Therefore, the present study evaluated factors causing misdiagnoses identified by psychosomatic consultation services. Over a period of 5 years, all patients referred to the psychosomatic consultation services of a large university hospital were analyzed consecutively for misdiagnoses. We analyzed the reasons for suspecting a misdiagnosis through systematic introspection during peer supervision and evaluated the causes during semistructured interviews with the referring physician. In 165 psychosomatic consultations, 24 disorders were misdiagnosed (15%). The reasons for questioning the initial diagnoses were the consulting physician's feelings and thoughts resulting from the patients' inappropriate behavior during the consultation and unusual clinical features. In eight cases, the misdiagnosis resulted from availability bias, and in three cases each it resulted from confirmation bias, search satisfaction bias, and framing effect and attribution bias. However, lack of medical knowledge played only a minor role. This study highlights the nonrational elements of the diagnostic process. In the context of psychosomatic consultation services, introspection and intuitive thought processes are helpful in identifying misdiagnoses. Self-satisfaction (availability bias) and overconfidence (confirmation bias) are most likely to result in misdiagnoses.

Unravelling Belgian Blue cattle farmers’ adoption intention towards diagnostic tools: Integrating insights from behavioural economics and socio-cognitive theories

Macrocyclic lactone resistance in Psoroptes ovis mites, causing psoroptic mange, is emerging in beef cattle. Therefore, diagnostic tools that can indicate macrocyclic lactone resistance should be implemented at farms in order to control these parasitic infections and slow down emerging resistance. Unfortunately, the adoption of such tools remains relatively poor. This study explores which beliefs, and behavioural biases that misconstrue these beliefs, underlie farmers’ adoption intention. Five semi-structured focus groups were conducted with Belgian Blue cattle farmers (n = 38). Inductive analysis revealed that farmers’ positive attitudes towards acaricides use and risk perception towards acaricide resistance made them rather reluctant to implement diagnostic tools. In addition, farmers’ susceptibility to acaricide resistance occurring on their farm was weakened by the optimism and availability bias. Deductive analysis revealed that economic reasons, usefulness of the diagnostic tool and contribution to animal wellbeing motivated farmers to adopt such tools (i.e., behavioural beliefs). However, the loss aversion and time discounting bias weakened farmers’ beliefs related to economic reasons. The veterinarian was seen as the responsible actor for implementing diagnostic tools, while colleague-farmers’ opinion related to the diagnostic tool was also valued (i.e., normative beliefs). The latter belief was strengthened by the bandwagon-effect bias. Farmers’ beliefs about economic costs related to the diagnostic tool tended to hinder adoption intention, while the veterinarian’s assistance motivated farmers to implement such tools (i.e., control beliefs). The loss aversion bias also strengthened farmers’ control beliefs related to the diagnostic tools’ perceived costs. As such, this article provides more insights into the (ir)rational factors shaping farmers’ intention to adopt diagnostic tools. These insights might help animal health organisations to design communication strategies to stimulate the adoption of diagnostic tools on beef cattle farms.

Protecting Future Generations: A Global Survey of Legal Academics

The laws and policies of today may have historically unique consequences for future generations, yet their interests are rarely represented in current legal systems. The climate crisis has shed light on the importance of taking into consideration the interests of future generations, while the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that we are not sufficiently prepared for some of the most severe risks of the next century. What we do to address these and other risks, such as from advanced artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, could drastically affect the future. However, little has been done to identify how and to what degree the law can and ought to protect future generations. To respond to these timely questions of existential importance, we sought the expertise of legal academia through a global survey of over 500 law professors (n=516). This Article elaborates on the experimental results and implications for legal philosophy, doctrine, and policy. Our results strongly suggest that law professors across the English-speaking world widely consider the protection of future generations to be an issue of utmost importance that can be addressed through legal intervention. Strikingly, we find that law professors desire more than three times the perceived current protection for humans living in the far future (100+ years from now), roughly equal to the perceived level of current protection for present generations. Furthermore, the vast majority of law professors (72%) responded that legal mechanisms are among the most predictable, feasible mechanisms through which to influence the long-term future, with environmental and constitutional law particularly promising. These findings hold true independent of demographic factors such as age, gender, political affiliation, and legal training. Although future generations have not been granted standing in any cases to date, responses indicated that law professors believe there is a plausible legal basis for granting standing to future generations and other neglected groups, such as the environment and non-human animals, in at least some cases. Other topics surveyed included which constitutional mechanisms were perceived as more able to protect future generations. Finally, we outline some limitations of the study and potential directions for future research. For example, one might doubt legal scholars’ ability to estimate the long-term impact of law and legal systems, due to the conjunction fallacy and availability bias. In that regard, future research could survey forecasters, who have expertise in evaluating and predicting the future more generally.

Do Cognitive Biases Impact M&amp;amp;A Performance in Emerging Markets? Evidence from Russian Firms

In this paper we investigate cognitive biases as a potential reason for the varied results of M&A in emerging capital markets. We focus on two cognitive biases, CEO overconfidence and availability bias, which significantly influence CEO behavior, encouraging them to be irrational in M&A deals. Based on 237 M&A deals closed by Russian firms during the period 2005–2019 we empirically prove that CEO overconfidence destroys value, and availability bias creates value in M&A deals in the Russian market. We show that due to the low level of corporate governance in emerging capital markets, all corporate governance mechanisms can mitigate CEO irrationalities in M&A.

Impact of nonclinical factors on intensive care unit admission decisions: a vignette-based randomized trial (V-TRIAGE).

ObjectiveTo assess the impact of intensive care unit bed availability, distractors and choice framing on intensive care unit admission decisions.MethodsThis study was a randomized factorial trial using patient-based vignettes. The vignettes were deemed archetypical for intensive care unit admission or refusal, as judged by a group of experts. Intensive care unit physicians were randomized to 1) an increased distraction (intervention) or a control group, 2) an intensive care unit bed scarcity or nonscarcity (availability) setting, and 3) a multiple-choice or omission (status quo) vignette scenario. The primary outcome was the proportion of appropriate intensive care unit allocations, defined as concordance with the allocation decision made by the group of experts.ResultsWe analyzed 125 physicians. Overall, distractors had no impact on the outcome; however, there was a differential drop-out rate, with fewer physicians in the intervention arm completing the questionnaire. Intensive care unit bed availability was associated with an inappropriate allocation of vignettes deemed inappropriate for intensive care unit admission (OR = 2.47; 95%CI 1.19 - 5.11) but not of vignettes appropriate for intensive care unit admission. There was a significant interaction with the presence of distractors (p = 0.007), with intensive care unit bed availability being associated with increased intensive care unit admission of vignettes inappropriate for intensive care unit admission in the distractor (intervention) arm (OR = 9.82; 95%CI 2.68 - 25.93) but not in the control group (OR = 1.02; 95%CI 0.38 - 2.72). Multiple choices were associated with increased inappropriate allocation in comparison to the omission group (OR = 5.18; 95%CI 1.37 - 19.61).ConclusionIntensive care unit bed availability and cognitive biases were associated with inappropriate intensive care unit allocation decisions. These findings may have implications for intensive care unit admission policies.