Tell me about a decision where you badly wanted one answer to be right. How did you keep that from steering the analysis?

Problem solving

Why this works

Motivated reasoning is the failure mode analysis doesn't protect against — the analysis just gets aimed. A decision with a personal stake tests whether the candidate has working defenses: disconfirming checks, outside reviewers, criteria fixed before the evidence arrives.

Follow-up probes

What did you do that could have proven your preferred answer wrong?
Who was positioned to call you on bias, and did they?
Where did it land, and did anyone disagree?

What good looks like

The stake named openly, at least one genuine attempt to disprove the preferred answer, criteria or reviewers in place before the conclusion, and a believable account whichever way it landed.

Red flags

Objectivity claimed as a character trait with no mechanism behind it, the "check" was asking someone likely to agree, or the preferred answer won and every doubt gets retrofitted away.

Related across competencies

Tell me about a target you set for yourself that nobody asked you to hit. How did you hold yourself to it when no one was checking?
Initiative

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