What question did this study set out to answer?

The aim is to determine whether critical thinking classes effectively reduce common biases in reasoning.

April 12, 2026

Critical thinking classes can reduce common biases: Results from a field experiment.

MBMichaël BishopFlorida State University AFAdam FeltzUniversity of Oklahoma PCPaul Conway

Key Points

The aim is to determine whether critical thinking classes effectively reduce common biases in reasoning.
Conducted a field experiment with 397 undergraduate students.
Compared critical thinking classes in philosophy to other philosophy classes.
Measured reductions in biases in judgment and decision making.
Critical thinking classes significantly reduced four common biases.
Debiasing effects were substantial with Cohen's d > 0.80.
Effects persisted for at least 16 months post-class.

Abstract

Critical thinking classes are ubiquitous in U.S. college curricula. One of their aims is to teach good reasoning skills. To date, there is little systematic evidence that they do this. We report the results of a field experiment (N = 397) that compared undergraduate critical thinking classes taught in a philosophy department to other undergraduate philosophy classes. The results suggest that an appropriately designed critical thinking class can dramatically reduce four common biases in judgment and decision making: honoring sunk costs, inferring causation from correlation, ignoring regression to the mean, and overlooking opportunity costs. The size of the debiasing effects was substantial (Cohen's d > 0.80) and persisted at least 16 months after the class ended. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

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