Investigação sobre vieses cognitivos no julgamento de discentes do curso de bacharelado em direito

Abstract

This work aimed to investigate cognitive biases in the judgments of law students at UFPA through their performance in a simulated legal case with uncertain and ambiguous information. It was based on studies in Behavioral Economics on human decision-making based on heuristics and cognitive biases in situations of uncertainty and ambiguity. 63 students participated, 27 seniors and 36 freshmen. The project used the Uncertainty Intolerance Scale (IUS-12), a Critical Thinking Disposition Scale (CTDS) and a Simulated Legal Case as data collection instruments. These were analyzed using Exploratory Factor Analysis, Mann-Whitney Test and Polychoric Correlation. There was no statistically significant difference in the performance of senior students with freshman students. In general, students showed low resistance to bias, as measured by the simulated legal case, with no statistically significant relationships with measures of disposition to critical thinking and intolerance of uncertainty. Although preliminary, the results suggest that legal training may not guarantee the decision-making skills necessary for bias-resistant judgment in contexts of uncertainty and ambiguity.