TY - JOUR
T1 - On the Interplay of Data and Cognitive Bias in Crisis Information Management
T2 - An Exploratory Study on Epidemic Response
AU - Paulus, David
AU - Fathi, Ramian
AU - Fiedrich, Frank
AU - de Walle, Bartel Van
AU - Comes, Tina
PY - 2022
Y1 - 2022
N2 - Humanitarian crises, such as the 2014 West Africa Ebola epidemic, challenge information management and thereby threaten the digital resilience of the responding organizations. Crisis information management (CIM) is characterised by the urgency to respond despite the uncertainty of the situation. Coupled with high stakes, limited resources and a high cognitive load, crises are prone to induce biases in the data and the cognitive processes of analysts and decision-makers. When biases remain undetected and untreated in CIM, they may lead to decisions based on biased information, increasing the risk of an inefficient response. Literature suggests that crisis response needs to address the initial uncertainty and possible biases by adapting to new and better information as it becomes available. However, we know little about whether adaptive approaches mitigate the interplay of data and cognitive biases. We investigated this question in an exploratory, three-stage experiment on epidemic response. Our participants were experienced practitioners in the fields of crisis decision-making and information analysis. We found that analysts fail to successfully debias data, even when biases are detected, and that this failure can be attributed to undervaluing debiasing efforts in favor of rapid results. This failure leads to the development of biased information products that are conveyed to decision-makers, who consequently make decisions based on biased information. Confirmation bias reinforces the reliance on conclusions reached with biased data, leading to a vicious cycle, in which biased assumptions remain uncorrected. We suggest mindful debiasing as a possible counter-strategy against these bias effects in CIM.
AB - Humanitarian crises, such as the 2014 West Africa Ebola epidemic, challenge information management and thereby threaten the digital resilience of the responding organizations. Crisis information management (CIM) is characterised by the urgency to respond despite the uncertainty of the situation. Coupled with high stakes, limited resources and a high cognitive load, crises are prone to induce biases in the data and the cognitive processes of analysts and decision-makers. When biases remain undetected and untreated in CIM, they may lead to decisions based on biased information, increasing the risk of an inefficient response. Literature suggests that crisis response needs to address the initial uncertainty and possible biases by adapting to new and better information as it becomes available. However, we know little about whether adaptive approaches mitigate the interplay of data and cognitive biases. We investigated this question in an exploratory, three-stage experiment on epidemic response. Our participants were experienced practitioners in the fields of crisis decision-making and information analysis. We found that analysts fail to successfully debias data, even when biases are detected, and that this failure can be attributed to undervaluing debiasing efforts in favor of rapid results. This failure leads to the development of biased information products that are conveyed to decision-makers, who consequently make decisions based on biased information. Confirmation bias reinforces the reliance on conclusions reached with biased data, leading to a vicious cycle, in which biased assumptions remain uncorrected. We suggest mindful debiasing as a possible counter-strategy against these bias effects in CIM.
KW - Cognitive bias
KW - Crisis information management
KW - Data bias
KW - Digital resilience
KW - Epidemics
KW - Mindfulness
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85126800916&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s10796-022-10241-0
DO - 10.1007/s10796-022-10241-0
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85126800916
JO - Information Systems Frontiers: a journal of research and innovation
JF - Information Systems Frontiers: a journal of research and innovation
SN - 1387-3326
ER -