Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, Vol 56(3), Jun 2025, 211-221; doi:10.1037/pro0000615
Bias is an inherent phenomenon of information processing that can occur whenever the human brain is involved. In forensic psychological assessments, bias threatens the reliability and validity of the conclusions about, for example, credibility of witness’ statements, risk of reoffending, child custody, or competency to stand trial. Given the far-reaching consequences of forensic psychological assessments for individuals and society, it is important to identify strategies to minimize the risk of bias. In this article, we apply a process-oriented understanding of bias to the context of forensic psychological assessments. In doing so, we bring together theoretical considerations and empirical findings on how to combat bias. We show how debiasing strategies can be implemented in the individual tasks of forensic psychological assessment and evaluate their challenges and limitations in this field of application. We provide five key messages for forensic psychological practitioners that include expert training, transparent documentation, using standardized procedures, masking irrelevant case information, and applying alternative hypotheses approaches, and we discuss the potential of generative artificial intelligence to help debiasing. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)