The Cost of Knowing: Why the solution you already know stops you from seeing the better one

Short summary

The Einstellung effect—identified in chess, medicine, and software engineering—causes experienced professionals to default to familiar solutions, preventing discovery of better alternatives. This cognitive bias amplifies in senior-heavy teams and is inherited by LLMs, anchoring them to poor first suggestions. Organizations should institutionalize devil's advocates and bias awareness training rather than relying solely on individual awareness.

• •Einstellung effect: prior expertise blinds decision-makers to better solutions
• •Bias amplifies in senior-dominant teams and affects LLMs equally
• •Organizations must mandate devil's advocates and awareness training as cultural practice

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.