The Wisdom of the Small Crowd: Myside Bias and Group Discussion

Edoardo Baccini (), Zoé Christoff (), Stephan Hartmann () and Rineke Verbrugge ()
Additional contact information
Edoardo Baccini: http://edoardobaccini.wordpress.com
Zoé Christoff: https://zoechristoff.com/
Stephan Hartmann: http://www.stephanhartmann.org/
Rineke Verbrugge: https://rinekeverbrugge.nl/

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2023, vol. 26, issue 4, 7

Abstract: The my-side bias is a well-documented cognitive bias in the evaluation of arguments, in which reasoners in a discussion tend to overvalue arguments that confirm their prior beliefs, while undervaluing arguments that attack their prior beliefs. The first part of this paper develops and justifies a Bayesian model of myside bias at the level of individual reasoning. In the second part, this Bayesian model is implemented in an agent-based model of group discussion among myside-biased agents. The agent-based model is then used to perform a number of experiments with the objective to study whether the myside bias hinders or enhances the ability of groups to collectively track the truth, that is, to reach the correct answer to a given binary issue. An analysis of the results suggests the following: First, whether the truth-tracking ability of groups is helped or hindered by myside bias crucially depends on how the strength of myside bias is differentially distributed across subgroups of discussants holding different beliefs. Second, small groups are more likely to track the truth than larger groups, suggesting that increasing group size has a detrimental effect on collective truth-tracking through discussion.

Keywords: Myside Bias; Group Deliberation; Agent-Based Modeling; Truth-Tracking; Wisdom of the Crowd (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023-10-31
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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