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Yvain comments on Prospect Theory: A Framework for Understanding Cognitive Biases - Less Wrong
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Deal. I'll even pull rank with my formal qualifications on English grammar, should they care about that.
Question for the formally qualified grammarian: When using singular "they", which is correct?
"When a person is biased, they make mistakes"
"When a person is based, they makes mistakes"
The second sounds absolutely horrible, but if singular "they" is really being used as a singular in the same sense as "he" or "she", it sounds like it ought to be correct.
Have a gander at Language Log where the "singular they" has been extensively discussed - mostly, apparently, because it's something of a litmus test to determine whether someone is a descriptivist or a prescriptivist grammarian; the LL crowd falling squarely in the descriptivist camp.
The short answer is that it's grammatically plural; it's a "plural of indeterminacy of number" primarily, and has taken on under social pressure an aspect of "plural of indeterminacy of gender". Number one is correct.
ETA: background info.
Consider:
When you, Yvain, are biased, you make mistakes
Clearly in the 2nd person singular, the verb displays "plural" agreement. It's the same for "they".