Published on 23 May 2024 • Written by Dr Lisa Colledge
Do you sometimes wonder why bad decisions ever got made? Especially when evidence was available that suggested pretty clearly that it was, in fact, a bad decision?
Having evidence available doesn’t guarantee that we use it well. How information is presented, what we have already invested, and which outcomes we hope for can all influence our judgment.
But people are not equally susceptible to every cognitive bias. Research into autistic thinking highlights strengths that conventional accounts of decision-making can overlook. For organizations, this raises a practical question: how do you create conditions where different ways of evaluating evidence can contribute to better decisions?
Key takeaways
Our decisions can be influenced by information that is irrelevant to the choice in front of us. Expertise and good intentions do not automatically prevent this.
Research has found that autistic participants are less susceptible to certain cognitive biases in some decision-making tasks. These findings highlight potential strengths, without implying that every autistic person is consistently objective or immune to bias.
Organizations can make better use of different perspectives by designing how people contribute, challenge assumptions, and evaluate evidence. Build these practices before a critical decision puts them to the test.
It is easy to recognize bias in someone else’s decision and harder to spot it in our own. A useful starting point is to examine how your team makes decisions.
When someone interprets the evidence differently, do you explore their reasoning? When a project has absorbed significant time and money, can you still consider stopping it? Would the same facts lead you to a different choice if they were presented another way?
Better team decisions depend partly on whether different perspectives get a fair hearing – especially when they challenge what the team already wants to do.
I’m going to share some research that underpins what I am saying, but before I do, I’m going to talk about the opportunity this offers to your organization, and how you can take a step in the right direction to take advantage of this opportunity.
How can we make room for these strengths in my organization?
Start by examining what your working practices ask of people. Do colleagues receive information early enough to think it through? Can they contribute in writing as well as in conversation? Are concerns examined on their merits, even when someone expresses them differently from the rest of the team?
For some autistic people, navigating implicit expectations and ambiguous communication takes considerable effort. Making expectations clearer can reduce that burden. You can explore practical examples in this article on communication inspired by autistic experiences.
Sharing agendas in advance, making the purpose of meetings explicit, and considering when cameras are actually necessary are useful places to start. Ask people what helps them contribute rather than assuming that a diagnosis tells you everything about their needs.
Build the conditions for different people to contribute before you urgently need their perspective.
You can begin without requiring anyone to disclose a diagnosis. Autistic colleagues are very likely already be part of your organization, whether you know it or not. The practical opportunity is to identify barriers to participation and create working practices that support a wider range of people.
What does research tell us about autistic visual attention?
Anna Remington, John Swettenham and Nilli Lavie investigated how autistic and non-autistic adults detected visual information as a task became more demanding.
Participants searched for a target letter while also detecting a small shape outside the letter display. As the letter-search task became more demanding, the non-autistic group became less sensitive to the additional shape. The autistic group did not show the same decline.
The researchers interpreted this as evidence of greater perceptual capacity in the autistic participants. That is a specific strength in processing visual information under load. It does not mean autistic people are never distracted or that their attention cannot become overloaded.
What evidence is there that autists are more rational in decision making?
Research reviewed by Rozenkrantz and colleagues identifies several decision-making tasks in which autistic participants showed less susceptibility to bias than non-autistic comparison groups. These are findings about particular tasks and groups, rather than a guarantee about any individual’s decisions.
Here is one example about Sunk Cost Bias:
Sunk cost bias occurs when money, time, or effort already invested makes us more inclined to continue, even when the prospects no longer justify doing so.
Those past investments cannot be recovered, so the decision should turn on future costs and benefits. Research has found reduced susceptibility to sunk cost bias among autistic participants, suggesting a potential strength in evaluating whether continued investment makes sense.
And a second example about the Framing Effect:
Would you rather keep $30 of $50, or lose $20 of $50?
Would you rather eat 20% fat-containing or 80% fat-free crisps?
These examples illustrate how equivalent information can sound more or less attractive depending on its presentation. Keeping $30 of $50 and losing $20 of $50 leave you with the same amount; 20% fat and 80% fat-free describe the same proportion.
Research has found that autistic participants can be less influenced by framing than non-autistic comparison groups. The relevant strength is greater consistency when equivalent information is presented differently.
There are many more examples, but you get the idea.
From individual strengths to better team decisions
Different ways of thinking give a team more possibilities for examining evidence, spotting risks, and questioning assumptions. Whether those perspectives influence decisions depends on how the team works together.
Can people challenge a preferred option without being dismissed as difficult? Is there time to consider the evidence before a meeting? Does the team agree what would justify changing course?
These are working practices that leaders can deliberately design. You can start without knowing anyone’s diagnosis, by examining what helps different people contribute and what gets in their way.
Could your team make better use of its different perspectives?
I help leaders in knowledge-intensive organizations design the working practices that connect different expertise and ways of thinking into collective capability.
Most organizations already have the cognitive diversity they need. The opportunity is designing systems that allow those different ways of thinking to work together effectively.
➡️ If these ideas resonate, you can explore how I approach neuro-inspired team and leadership design on the Services page.
References
Anna M. Remington, John G. Swettenham and Nilli Lavie (2012) ‘Lightening the Load: Perceptual Load Impairs Visual Detection in Typical Adults but Not in Autism’, Journal of Abnormal Psychology 121(2), pp. 544–551.
Liron Rozenkrantz, Anila D’Mello and John Gabrieli (2021) ‘Enhanced rationality in autism spectrum disorder’, Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25(8), pp. 685–696.
