ABSTRACT

Spontaneous (i.e., heuristic, fast, effortless, and associative) processing has clear advantages for human cognition, but it can also elicit undesirable outcomes such as stereotyping and other biases. In the current article, we argue that biased judgements and behaviour that result from spontaneous processing can be reduced by activating various flexibility mindsets. These mindsets are characterised by the consideration of alternatives beyond one’s spontaneous thoughts and behaviours and could, thus, contribute to bias reduction. Research has demonstrated that eliciting flexibility mindsets via goal and cognitive conflicts, counterfactual thinking,, recalling own past flexible thoughts or behaviour, and adopting a promotion focus reduces biases in judgements and behaviour. We summarise evidence for the effectiveness of flexibility mindsets across a wide variety of important phenomena – including creative performance, stereotyping and prejudice, interpersonal behaviour, and decision-making. Finally, we discuss the underlying processes and potential boundary conditions.

摘要

自发（即启发式、快速、轻松和联想）处理对人类认知具有明显的优势，但它也可能引发不良结果，例如刻板印象和其他偏见。在当前的文章中，我们认为可以通过激活各种灵活性心态来减少自发处理导致的偏见判断和行为. 这些思维模式的特点是考虑超越自发思想和行为的替代方案，因此可能有助于减少偏见。研究表明，通过目标和认知冲突、反事实思维、回忆自己过去灵活的想法或行为以及采用提升重点来激发灵活性思维方式，可以减少判断和行为的偏见。我们总结了灵活性思维模式在各种重要现象中的有效性的证据——包括创造性表现、刻板印象和偏见、人际行为和决策。最后，我们讨论了潜在的过程和潜在的边界条件。