Experience and Cognitive Biases in Oil and Gas Industry Personnel

Demonstrations of cognitive bias in expert decision makers are often criticised on the basis of their content being irrelevant to the participants. Herein two cognitive biases, anchoring and overconfidence, are shown to occur in batteries designed with questions relevant to the participants’ domains of expertise. Results suggest that neither industry experience nor risk training removes the biases’ effects. Instead, a relationship is found between the amount of time lapsed since such training occurred and calibration/overconfidence. This is taken as partial support for the proposition that regular training in risk, uncertainty and the mode of action of biases aids in remediation.