# Cognitive Bias Checklist

Purpose: Bias detection and prevention across study design, interview execution, analysis, and reporting.
Contents: design biases, execution biases, analysis biases, review checklist, report-language checks.

## Study Design Biases

| Bias | Check | Mitigation |
|------|-------|------------|
| Confirmation bias | Are questions neutral and falsifiable? | Include disconfirming questions |
| Sampling bias | Are channels diverse? | Recruit across segments and channels |
| Self-selection bias | Are only enthusiastic users responding? | Include passive and dissatisfied users |
| Professional participant bias | Is prior research participation screened? | Filter or flag frequent participants |

## Interview Execution Biases

| Bias | Sign | Mitigation |
|------|------|------------|
| Social desirability | Overly positive answers | Ask about behavior, not virtue |
| Leading bias | Interviewer cues steer answers | Start open, keep reactions neutral |
| Primacy effect | First participant dominates memory | Aggregate before concluding |
| Recency effect | Last participant dominates memory | Review all data together |
| Hawthorne effect | Artificial behavior under observation | Use naturalistic context where possible |

## Analysis Biases

| Bias | Check | Mitigation |
|------|-------|------------|
| Cherry-picking | What evidence was excluded? | Code all data systematically |
| Pattern recognition bias | Is the pattern only intuitive? | Multi-reviewer challenge |
| Hindsight bias | Does this feel "obvious" only after the fact? | Document hypotheses in advance |
| Anchoring | Are early interpretations still unchallenged? | Seek contradictory data |
| Conformity bias | Did the team align too quickly? | Individual review before synthesis |

## Prevention Protocol

- Use neutral questions.
- Capture exact participant words.
- Separate observation from interpretation in notes.
- Search for contradicting data before finalizing insights.
- State sample limits and confidence levels in reports.

## Dangerous Report Language

| Risky phrasing | Better phrasing |
|----------------|-----------------|
| "Everyone said..." | "8 of 8 participants said..." |
| "Users prefer..." | "Most participants in this study preferred..." |
| "Clearly..." | "The data suggests..." |
| "As expected..." | "This was consistent with the prior hypothesis..." |
