Hawkish Biases in Group Setting

• In Event: Experimental Research on Leaders and International Relations

Abstract

How do cognitive biases in individual decision-making aggregate to impact state foreign policy? Foreign policy decisions are discussed and debated in group contexts, but our knowledge of the psychological processes that impact decision-making are at the individual level. In particular, many identified cognitive biases – such as reactive devaluation, the intentionality bias, and risk preferences surrounding losses – have all been hypothesized to increase hawkishness in foreign policy preferences, but the way in which these biases operate in group contexts is unknown. On the one hand, advisory groups are often purposefully designed to reduce the biases of a single decision-maker; however, infamous studies of groupthink and other problematic group processes highlight the potential downsides of collective decision-making. The present study addresses this question on the role of aggregation using an online group experiment (n=2500) to assess how hierarchical- and horizontally-structured groups attenuate versus exacerbate the prevalence of these biases in political decision-making. This novel exploration of “the aggregation problem” has important implications for understanding the psychology of foreign policy-making and the role of group processes in international politics.

Authors

• Joshua D. Kertzer, Harvard University

• Marcus Holmes, The College of William & Mary

• Brad L. LeVeck, University of California, Merced

• Carly Nicole Wayne, Washington University in St. Louis