Bias in supervision: A social psychological perspective on regulatory decision-making

Supervisory bodies, such as market authorities and inspectorates, are expected to make decisions independently and objectively. To what extent are supervisory officers—who work at these institutions—able to make decisions in an objective and unbiased manner? From a social psychological perspective, the current dissertation provides more insight into the decision-making of supervisory officers at the individual and group level. By conducting questionnaire studies and field experiments among diverse samples of supervisory officers, this dissertation examines the extent to which supervisory officers are aware of and affected by biases. Moreover, it tests the effectiveness of various communication strategies and decision-making tools (i.e., advocacy decision procedure and decisional balance sheet) that aim to increase awareness and improve the decision-making of supervisory officers. This dissertation’s findings suggest that supervisory officers are influenced by biases, both at the individual and group level, which increases the risk of making suboptimal decisions. Moreover, results indicate that supervisory officers are in general not so much aware of their own biases and tend to be overconfident about the quality of their decisions. The findings of this dissertation further suggest that informing supervisory officers about the risks of biases and providing a decision-making tool are ineffective strategies to correct for biases. However, results of the current dissertation also imply that participative leaders can stimulate supervisory officers to make informed and timely decisions. These insights can help supervisory officers in taking a closer look at how they reach their decisions and taking the next steps in improving their decision-making.