Cognitive Biases in Group Decision-Making – Raising Awareness through a Collaborative Serious Game

Sandra Schlick; Hans Friedrich Witschel; Corina Stampfli

doi:10.7250/csimq.2026-47.02

Cognitive Biases in Group Decision-Making – Raising Awareness through a Collaborative Serious Game

Authors

Sandra Schlick FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Riggenbachstrasse 16, Olten, 4600, Switzerland https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3661-0479
Hans Friedrich Witschel FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Riggenbachstrasse 16, Olten, 4600, Switzerland https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8608-9039
Corina Stampfli FHNW University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Riggenbachstrasse 16, Olten, 4600, Switzerland https://orcid.org/0009-0008-7384-6476

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7250/csimq.2026-47.02

Keywords:

Group Decision Making, Cognitive Bias, Serious Game, Role-Play, Adventure, Project Management

Abstract

The growing importance of collaborative or group decision-making in business projects is accompanied by several challenges, especially cognitive biases. This article focuses on identifying the key cognitive biases that affect group decision-making and explores the potential of a serious role-playing game as a training method to identify group decision-making biases. Using a design science research approach, a game prototype was developed to improve group decision-making in a corporate context by increasing players' awareness of their biased decisions. The findings indicate that there is a need to provide specifically designed games for group decision-making, and only a limited number of existing games are specifically designed for corporate decision-making contexts. Our contribution addresses the lack of training tools such as role-playing that increase cognitive bias awareness for group decision-making in projects, demonstrating the potential of a collaborative serious game to mitigate biases such as groupthink bias, authority bias, and social loafing while providing actionable insights for companies wishing to develop their own game on how to adapt the game’s design and effectiveness. It shows that every bias requires specific game characteristics, such as storyline, feedback mechanisms, and role concepts.

Supporting Agencies

FHNW

References

M. Morelli, M. Casagrande, and G. Forte, “Decision Making: A Theoretical Review,” Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, vol. 56, pp. 609–629, 2022.

G. Narmadha and K. Vinayagam, “Impact of Leadership Teamwork and Organizational Policies towards Employee Engagement,” in 2024 Third International Conference on Intelligent Techniques in Control, Optimization and Signal Processing (INCOS), 2024, pp. 1–5.

F. Delice, M. Rousseau, and J. Feitosa, “Advancing teams research: What, when, and how to measure team dynamics over time,” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 10, 2019.

D. E. Gibbons and M. Freeman, “Decision‐making challenges: Group dynamics and boundary spanning in the CyberStrike game,” Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, vol. 20, no. 3, pp. 145–157, 2022.

L. Buchanan and A. O’Connell, “A Brief History of Decision Making,” Harvard Business Review, vol. 84, no. 1, 2006.

D. Kahneman, “Maps of Bounded Rationality: Psychology for Behavioral Economics,” American Economic Review, vol. 93, no. 5, pp. 1449–1475, 2003.

H. A. Simon, “Bounded Rationality,” in Utility and Probability, 1990, pp. 15–18.

D. Kahneman and A. Tversky, “Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision under Risk,” Econometrica, vol. 47, no. 2, pp. 263–292, 1979.

D. Rumeser and M. Emsley, “Can Serious Games Improve Project Management Decision Making Under Complexity?” Project Management Journal, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 23–39, 2019.

L. Virine and M. Trumper, Project Decisions: The Art and Science. Second edition. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2019.

R. Grünig and R. Kühn, Successful Decision-making: A Systematic Approach to Complex Problems. 1st edition, Springer, 2005.

D. Bang and C. D. Frith, “Making better decisions in groups,” Royal Society Open Science, vol. 4, no. 8, 2017.

J. A. O. G. Cunha, H. P. Moura, and F. J. S. Vasconcellos, “Decision-making in Software Project Management: A Systematic Literature Review,” Procedia Computer Science, vol. 100, pp. 947–954, 2016.

M. Hällgren, “Groupthink in Temporary Organizations,” International Journal of Managing Projects in Business, vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 94–110, 2010.

C. Acciarini, F. Brunetta, and P. Boccardelli, “Cognitive biases and decision-making strategies in times of change: a systematic literature review,” Management Decision, vol. 59, no. 3, pp. 638–652, 2020.

I. L. Janis, “Victims of Groupthink: A Psychological Study of Foreign-policy Decisions and Fiascoes,” Victims of groupthink: A psychological study of foreign-policy decisions and fiascoes, 1972.

D. G. Gültekin, “Understanding and Mitigating Authority Bias in Business and Beyond,” in Overcoming Cognitive Biases in Strategic Management and Decision Making, 2024, pp. 57–72.

R. Ding, “Successful Project Decision-Making,” in Key Project Management Based on Effective Project Thinking, 2016, pp. 75–94.

P. Arroyo and D. Long, “Collaborative Design Decisions,” in 26th Annual Conference of the International Group for Lean Construction, 2018, pp. 463–472.

M. H. Bazerman and D. Chugh, “Decisions Without Blinders,” Harvard Business Review, 2006. Available: https://hbr.org/2006/01/decisions-without-blinders

M. Czerwonka, “Anchoring and Overconfidence: The Influence of Culture and Cognitive Abilities,” International Journal of Management and Economics, vol. 53, no. 3, pp. 48–66, 2017.

D. G. Gültekin, “Groupthink in Contemporary Decision Making: A Failure to Dissent,” in Overcoming Cognitive Biases in Strategic Management and Decision Making, 2024, pp. 91–106.

E. Hudlicka, “Modeling Cultural and Personality Biases in Decision-Making,” in Advances in Culturally-Aware Intelligent Systems and in Cross-Cultural Psychological Studies. Intelligent Systems Reference Library, vol. 134, 2018, pp. 189–209.

W.-W. Park, “A comprehensive empirical investigation of the relationships among variables of the groupthink model,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, vol. 21, no. 8, pp. 873–887, 2000.

E. Pronin, “Perception and misperception of bias in human judgment,” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 37–43, 2007.

P. G. Roetzel, “Information overload in the information age: a review of the literature from business administration, business psychology, and related disciplines with a bibliometric approach and framework development,” Business Research, vol. 12, pp. 479–522, 2019.

B. Flyvbjerg, “Top Ten Behavioral Biases in Project Management: An Overview,” Project Management Journal, vol. 52, no. 6, pp. 531–546, 2021.

R. P. De Lope and N. Medina-Medina, “A Comprehensive Taxonomy for Serious Games,” Journal of Educational Computing Research, vol. 55, no. 5, pp. 629–672, 2017.

M. Greco, “The Use of Role–Playing in Learning,” Games-Based Learning Advancements for Multi-Sensory Human Computer Interfaces: Techniques and Effective Practices, pp. 157–173, 2009.

C. Gabelica, S. De Maeyer, and M. C. Schippers, “Taking a Free Ride: How Team Learning Affects Social Loafing,” Journal of Educational Psychology, vol. 114, no. 4, pp. 716–733, 2022.

L. Revere, M. Elden, and R. Bartsch, “Designing Group Examinations to Decrease Social Loafing and Increase Learning,” International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning, vol. 2, no. 1, 2008.

C. Muntwiler, “Cognitive Biases and Debiasing in Strategic Decision Making.” Dissertation, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, 2024.

T. Susi, M. Johannesson, and P. Backlund, “Serious Games – An Overview,” Technical Report, HS- IKI -TR-07-001, 2007.

C. Reynaldo, R. Christian, H. Hosea, and A. A. S. Gunawan, “Using Video Games to Improve Capabilities in Decision Making and Cognitive Skill: A Literature Review,” Procedia Computer Science, vol. 179, pp. 211–221, 2021.

N. E. Dunbar et al., “Implicit and Explicit Training in the Mitigation of Cognitive Bias through the Use of a Serious Game,” Computers in Human Behavior, vol. 37, pp. 307–318, 2014.

F. G. M. Silva, “Practical Methodology for the Design of Educational Serious Games,” Information, vol. 11, no. 1, 2020.

A. Gazis and E. Katsiri, “Serious Games in Digital Gaming: A Comprehensive Review of Applications, Game Engines and Advancements,” WSEAS Transactions on Computer Research, vol. 11, pp. 10–22, 2023.

J. C. Hertz, Joystick Nation: How Videogames Ate Our Quarters, Won Our Hearts, and Rewired Our Minds. Little, Brown and Company,1997.

M. A. Khenissi, F. Essalmi, M. Jemni, Kinshuk, S. Graf, and N.-S. Chen, “Relationship between learning styles and genres of games,” Computers & Education, vol. 101, pp. 1–14, 2016.

T. M. Connolly, E. A. Boyle, E. MacArthur, T. Hainey, and J. M. Boyle, “A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Evidence on Computer Games and Serious Games,” Computers & Education, vol. 59, no. 2, pp. 661–686, 2012.

H.-T. Hou, “Diverse Development and Future Challenges of Game-Based Learning and Gamified Teaching Research,” Education Sciences, vol. 13, no. 4, article 337, 2023.

C. Stampfli, S. Schlick, and H.-F. Witschel, “Improving Group Decision-Making Through a Collaborative Serious Game,” in Perspectives in Business Informatics Research. BIR 2025. Lecture Notes in Business Information Processing, vol. 562, 2025, pp. 20–36.

A. Calderon, M. Ruiz, and E. Orta, “Integrating Serious Games as Learning Resources in a Software Project Management Course: The Case of ProDec,” in 2017 IEEE/ACM 1st International Workshop on Software Engineering Curricula for Millennials (SECM), 2017, pp. 21–27.

B. Hussein, “Using Game-Based Learning to Prompt Reflective and Holistic Thinking in Project Management,” in Smart Pedagogy of Game-based Learning. Advances in Game-Based Learning, 2021, pp. 71–84.

D. Jacobson and B. Dargue, “Change Your Mind: Game Based AIS Can Reform Cognitive Behavior,” in Adaptive Instructional Systems. HCII 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol. 11597, 2019, pp. 108–117.

J. P. Zagal and S. Deterding, “Definitions of ‘Role-Playing Games’,” in Role-Playing Game Studies, Routledge, 2018.

C. Wang and L. Huang, “A Systematic Review of Serious Games for Collaborative Learning: Theoretical Framework, Game Mechanic and Efficiency Assessment,” International Journal of Emerging Technologies in Learning (iJET), vol. 16, no. 6, pp. 88–105, 2021.

M. Cleary, D. Lees, and J. Sayers, “Leadership, Thought Diversity, and the Influence of Groupthink,” Issues in Mental Health Nursing, vol. 40, no. 8, pp. 731–733, 2019.

D. Waskul and M. Lust, “Role‐Playing and Playing Roles: The Person, Player, and Persona in Fantasy Role‐Playing,” Symbolic Interaction, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 333–356, 2004.

V. Maratou, E. Chatzidaki, and M. Xenos, “Enhance Learning on Software Project Management through a Role-play Game in a Virtual World,” Interactive Learning Environments, vol. 24, no. 4, pp. 897–915, 2016.

J. Kaczmarczyk, R. Davidson, D. Bryden, S. Haselden, and P. Vivekananda-Schmidt, “Learning Decision Making through Serious Games,” The Clinical Teacher, vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 277–282, 2016.

M. Prensky, “Digital Game-based Learning,” Computers in Entertainment (CIE), vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 21–21, 2003.

S. Nicholson, “Peeking Behind the Locked Door: A Survey of Escape Room Facilities,” White Paper, 2015. Available: https://scottnicholson.com/pubs/erfacwhite.pdf

D. Menon and M. Romero, “Game Mechanics Supporting a Learning and Playful Experience in Educational Escape Games,” in Research Anthology on Developments in Gamification and Game-Based Learning, 2022, pp. 884–902.

F. Salvetti, C. Galli, B. Bertagni, R. Gardner, and R. Minehart, “A Digital Mindset for the Society 5.0: Experience an Online Escape Room,” in Innovations in Learning and Technology for the Workplace and Higher Education. TLIC 2021. Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, vol. 349, 2022, pp. 290–303.

S. Kirginas and D. Gouscos, “A Model for the Quantitative Assessment of Freedom of Choice in Adventure Digital Games,” Journal of Digital Media & Interaction, vol. 1, no. 2, 2018.

C. Morewedge, “How a Video Game Helped People Make Better Decisions,” Harvard Business Review, 2015.

C. Symborski, M. Barton, M. M. Quinn, J. H. Korris, K. S. Kassam, and C. K. Morewedge, “The Design and Development of Serious Games Using Iterative Evaluation,” Games and Culture, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 252–268, 2017.

A. R. Hevner and S. Chatterjee, Design Research in Information Systems: Theory and Practice. Springer, 2010.

Interviewee 1, “Interview 1: Awareness phase,” Oct. 24, 2023.

Interviewee 1, “Interview 3: Suggestion phase,” Feb. 16, 2024.

Interviewee 2, “Interview 2: Awareness phase,” Oct. 26, 2023.

Interviewee 2, “Interview 4: Suggestion phase,” Feb. 19, 2024.

D. Jaccard, L. Suppan, E. Sanchez, A. Huguenin, and M. Laurent, “The co.LAB Generic Framework for Collaborative Design of Serious Games: Development Study,” JMIR Serious Games, vol. 9, no. 3, 2021.

K. Peffers, M. Rothenberger, and W. Kuechler, Design Science Research in Information Systems: Advances in Theory and Practice. 7th International Conference, DESRIST 2012, Las Vegas, NV, USA, May 14-15, 2012, Proceedings. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, no. 7286. Springer, 2012.

V. Vyas and T. Zweifel, Gorilla in the Cockpit: Breaking the Hidden Patterns of Project Failure and the System for Success. 2022.

B. Fischhoff, “Debiasing,” in Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases, Cambridge University Press, 1982, pp. 422–444.

J. Cesario, “What Can Experimental Studies of Bias Tell us about Real-world Group Disparities?” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 45, article e66, 2022.

G. Montibeller and D. Von Winterfeldt, “Cognitive and Motivational Biases in Decision and Risk Analysis,” Risk Analysis, vol. 35, no. 7, pp. 1230–1251, 2015.

J. Reiff and D. Schlegel, “Hybrid project management – a systematic literature review,” International Journal of Information Systems and Project Management, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 45–63, 2022.

J. N. Harris, R. G. Swab, I. S. Mercer, and D. A. Tomczyk, “Role-Playing as Experiential Learning: Using Dungeons and Dragons to Teach Management Concepts,” Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning: Proceedings of the Annual ABSEL Conference, vol. 50, 2023. Available: https://absel-ojs-ttu.tdl.org/absel/article/view/3362

C. Johnson, S. Bailey, and W. Buskirk, “Designing Effective Feedback Messages in Serious Games and Simulations: A Research Review,” in Instructional Techniques to Facilitate Learning and Motivation of Serious Games. Advances in Game-Based Learning, 2017, pp. 119–140.

W. Peng, M. Lee, and C. Heeter, “The Effects of a Serious Game on Role-Taking and Willingness to Help,” Journal of Communication, vol. 60, no. 4, pp. 723–742, 2010.

G. C. B. Winardy and E. Septiana, “Role, Play, and Games: Comparison between Role-playing Games and Role-play in Education,” Social Sciences & Humanities Open, vol. 8, no. 1, article 100527, 2023.

J. Peloghitis and G. Smith, “Exploring Debiasing Strategies to Improve Small Group Reasoning and Decision Making Outcomes,” Language Research Bulletin, vol. 35, pp. 75–83, 2020.

Y. S. Lincoln, E. G. Guba, and J. J. Pilotta, “Naturalistic Inquiry,” International Journal of Intercultural Relations, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 438–439, 1985.

H.-Y. Sung and G.-J. Hwang, “A collaborative game-based learning approach to improving students’ learning performance in science courses,” Computers & Education, vol. 63, pp. 43–51, 2013.

H.-H. Yang and J.-Y. Feng, “Exploring the Impact of Collaborative Behavior on Digital Collaborative Game-based Learning,” in 2023 8th International Conference on Multimedia Communication Technologies (ICMCT), 2023, pp. 57–61.

H. T. Hou, Game-Based Learning and Gamification for Education. MDPI – Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 2023.