The 'fly in the ointment' (prefered to references to woodpiles....
) in the Psycho's theory is that the Captain arrived on the flight deck fresh to the situation and WITHOUT the 'cognative bias' and should therefore have been able to freely analyse the situation. Otherwise, regarding the PF, spot on, but PNF?? You have two independent 'mental states' (before the third arrived) that need to be 'confused' and 'biased' I do not see evidence that PNF suffered from the same bias. The training is (should be/was in my day) to IGNORE the 'confusion' and focus on the instruments which, as far as we know, were 'telling the truth'.
Your friend does, of course, observe another issue which needs to be looked at either from the presentation of information to the crew or in training.