Adieu Bias: Debiasing Intuitions Among French Speakers

Abstract

Recent debiasing studies have shown that a short, plain-English explanation of the correct solution strategy can improve reasoning performance. However, these studies have predominantly focused on English-speaking populations, who were tested with problem contents designed for an English-speaking test environment. Here we explore whether the key findings of previous debiasing studies can be extended to native French speakers living in continental Europe (France). We ran a training session with a battery of three reasoning tasks (i.e., base-rate neglect, conjunction fallacy, and bat-and-ball) on 147 native French speakers. We used a two-response paradigm in which participants first gave an initial intuitive response, under time pressure and cognitive load, and then gave a final response after deliberation. Results showed a clear training effect, as early as the initial (intuitive) stage. Immediately after training, most participants solved the problems correctly, without the need for a deliberation process. The findings confirm that the intuitive debiasing training effect extends to native French speakers.