Myside Bias, Rational Thinking, and Intelligence

2013/08/01 by Keith E. Stanovich, Richard F. West, Maggie E. Toplak · 2 citations
Decision Sciences · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cognition #Cognitive bias #Cognitive psychology #Confirmation bias #Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics #Psychology #Response bias #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Social psychology #Statistics #Test (biology) #Variety (cybernetics)

paper · doi:10.1177/0963721413480174

openalex publication_date 2013/08/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01

Abstract

Myside bias occurs when people evaluate evidence, generate evidence, and test hypotheses in a manner biased toward their own prior opinions and attitudes. Research across a wide variety of myside bias paradigms has revealed a somewhat surprising finding regarding individual differences. The magnitude of the myside bias shows very little relation to intelligence. Avoiding myside bias is thus one rational thinking skill that is not assessed by intelligence tests or even indirectly indexed through its correlation with cognitive ability measures.

Citations

• Individual differences in rational thought.
• Neural Bases of Motivated Reasoning: An fMRI Study of Emotional Constraints on Partisan Political Judgment in the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election
• Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs
• Associations between myside bias on an informal reasoning task and amount of post‐secondary education
• The locus of the myside bias in written argumentation
• Myside bias in thinking about abortion

Cited by

• Stimulating Reflection and Self-correcting Reasoning Through Argument Mapping: Three Approaches
• Confirmation bias [wikipedia]

Related

• Associations between myside bias on an informal reasoning task and amount of post‐secondary education
• Individual differences in rational thought.
• Bias Blind Spot: Structure, Measurement, and Consequences
• The locus of the myside bias in written argumentation
• Two kinds of bias