Bias is Human, but Awareness Improves Decision-Making in Workers’ Compensation

WCI 2025

How much does bias influence your decisions? If you're like most people, it's probably more than you think, but the good news is, you can change your thinking.

According to the WCI panel discussion The Perils of Misconception: Separating Objective Facts from Subject Emotion to Achieve Objectivity, Accuracy, and Better Outcomes, presented by Judge David Langham, Les Kertay, and Geralyn Datz, biases are natural, but making better decisions requires being aware of them.

'Everything You Know about the Brain is Wrong'

"Biases are natural responses," Datz explained. "But we need to know what's driving them?"

To do that, according to Kertay, we need to change the way we think about thinking."

"Everything you know about the brain is wrong," Kertay said, pointing out that people tending to think in oversimplified terms about how the brain works. "It's way more complicated; we're predicting all the time."

Kertay noted that survival requires the brain to make predictions and shortcuts and that's where biases creep in. For example, if you hear rustling in a bush you're walking near, you're likely to take action before attaching meaning to that the rustling.

"What does this mean and what do I do?" Kertay said. "Biases are shortcuts to answer these questions."

So, what's the problem?

Biases don't just exist to warn us to stay away from rustling bushes. They can also infiltrate decision-making, leading to less-than-ideal -- and perhaps costly -- outcomes.

"If we're not aware it's happening, that's when we get in trouble," Kertay explained. "I'm not going to tell you to get rid of them, I'm going to tell you to notice them."

Doing the noticing is what prevents the negative effects of biases.

"We'll make up things to explain why we did what we did after the fact," Kertay explained.

Datz added that where things go wrong is when biases become default ways of thinking.

"Bias is a systematic deviation from judgment and it it's left unchecked, it will start to feel normal," Datz said. "Become a scientist about yourself so that you can know yourself and speak up."

Emotional Awareness

Many people think that biases are something only other people have, Datz explained, pointing out how it's hard to notice emotion-driven biases when they're happening.

She cited a study of judges' parole decisions when they were delayed lunch and those that came from judges given a lunch break. Those who hadn't eaten were more likely to deny parole than those who had.

"That could be a million decisions in workers' comp," Langham noted.

For some people, Datz explained, emotional awareness may come more naturally than with others.

For example, people with a low tolerance for ambiguity may struggle with questioning their biases.

"If you don't like ambiguity, you're going to be impulsive because you want to impose order," Datz said. "Or if you have a need for closure, that might form decisions that cost money."

Change or Take Control?

Datz said that there's a misconception that biases are with us forever and can never be changed. Kertay responded that biases are hard to shake, but people can get to a point where they question biases so they're not controlled by them.

"The more certain that I am, the more I know I have to question myself," Kertay said.

Langham suggested that the answer might be found in the Marc Cohn song, "Walking in Memphis."

"Do I really feel the way I feel?" Langham said. "Is this what I really feel or has someone distracted me?"

Types of Biases

The panel covered types of biases that commonly pop up in workers' compensation.

Confirmation Bias

"It's like having blinders on," Datz said. "The root is a desire for certainty." In real life, it comes up in overlooking critical evidence and disregarding opinions, as might occur in response to a particularly disliked type of claim.

Kertay gave the example of a worker who was told he had early onset Alzheimer's and stopped working. Over the course of five years, he sought treatment for this diagnosis only to eventually learn that he had a B-12 deficiency when a physician checked his bloodwork and Alzheimer's wasn't in play at all.

"The whole time he had something treatable because somewhere along the line someone said, 'A neurologist said so," Kertay said, pointing out an overlap with authority bias.

Anchoring Bias

This type of bias involves security in what's known, often involving numbers in workers' compensation, and a fear of deviating from those numbers.

Langham pointed out that anchoring bias often plays a role in the "f-word" in workers' compensation, fraud.

"Maybe this person made a mistake or maybe something else is going on, but we hang a sign that says, 'Fraud' around this person's neck," Langham said.

Kertay noted that anchoring bias often keeps injured workers from getting the attention they crave.

"He's a liar," Kertay said. "We think people are lying when in fact they're just trying to get our attention."

Attention Bias

This is also known as the "shiny object trap" in which people will home in on an irrelevant detail and miss the rest of the story and what is actually important.

Availability Heuristic

This type of bias causes very recent events to shape how we view occurrences that appear to fit the same pattern.

Datz explained that this leads to over-identification because it causes us to think, "This just happened!"

Implicit Bias

These biases are unconscious and often involve judgments about race, gender, accent, socioeconomic status, physical attractiveness, and education levels.

In claims, Datz explained that implicit biases can cause trouble when injured workers can't explain their symptoms and the people listening to them attribute it to lack of intelligence or some other perceived deficiency.

Remedies

So, what can be done to curb the effect of bias on decision-making?

Datz recommended:

(1) Information and more education.

(2) Developing an internal motivation to identify biases.

(3) Individuation or seeing people as individuals rather than as part of a group.

(4) Direct contact to appreciate diversity and cultural sensitivities.

(5) Working on teams with people who are diverse from you.

Kertay has several "rules of thumb":

(1) Be skeptical of your first impression.

(2) Have someone to go to for an alternative way of thinking who will tell you what you weren't thinking about.

(3) Instruct AI to challenge assumptions you make without knowing it.

(4) Never use an adjective or adverb. "If you use 'very,' question it," Kertay said.

Datz added that being aware that you don't know what you don't know is an important step.

"Your biggest bias is the one you don't know you have," Datz said.

If weeding out bias seems daunting and like it's a recipe for finding flaws in yourself, Datz said that isn't what it's about.

"You don't need to judge yourself, you just need to be aware," Datz said.

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