Research on the bias blind spot shows that people are less capable of identifying biases in their own judgment than in others. People generally believe that they are less susceptible to biases than their peers and average people. This dissertation investigates the self-other bias asymmetry with respect to omission neglect. Omission neglect refers to insensitivity to missing or unknown information. Results from bias blind spot research imply a potential relationship between the self-other asymmetry in bias belief and omission neglect. Research on bias correction suggests that people holding a higher degree of asymmetry in bias beliefs may be less likely to correct biases even when omissions are made noticeable. Ironically, consumers who believe that they are less vulnerable to omission neglect may be more susceptible to omission neglect. Consumers may be also less likely to correct their judgment even when omitted information is made noticeable. The goal of the dissertation is to develop debiasing techniques to debias omission neglect in order to improve consumer judgment and decision making.

Corrective procedures are designed to debias omission neglect by means of reducing the bias blind spot. Prior to debiasing, two studies are designed to substantiate the assumption about the relationship between the bias blind spot and omission neglect. Study 1 demonstrates that people believe others are susceptible to omission neglect, but they themselves are not. Study 2 shows that higher self-other asymmetry predicts predict greater omission neglect and a decreased likelihood of judgment correction to a moderate position. Last, in study 3, we show that debiasing is most effective when the bias blind spot is most specifically related to omission neglect. However, only people in low need for cognitive closure are responsive to debiasing. Taken together, the studies show that the bias blind spot contributes to omission neglect and reduces responsiveness to debiasing.