Confirmation Bias: Why your decisions suck and you fight with your friends

Confirmation bias causes intelligent people to make terrible decisions, leading to divisiveness and damaged relationships.

Confirmation bias causes intelligent people to make terrible decisions, leading to divisiveness and damaged relationships. In this article, I first explain confirmation bias. Then I discuss why confirmation bias exists and give some examples. Finally, I provide strategies to deal with it.

It's not an understatement to say that our conversations lack intellectual depth. We're more divided than ever. So, it's crucial to understand how our biases color our conclusions.

Introduction

Think back to a time when someone didn't agree with you. You had facts, evidence, and data backing you up. Yet, oblivious to the obvious superiority of your position, they continued to disagree with you. Why?

First, and keep this in mind, you're not the only competent, rational person in the world. Likely not even in the argument. Nor are you surrounded by boneheaded morons.

“In effect, most people see and hear what they want and tune out everything else.”

- Michael J. Mauboussin, Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition

Second, you’re fighting against human nature. It’s comforting to know that our beliefs are an accurate reflection of the world. So, we don’t like to see anything that even hints at the idea that we’re wrong.

It’s this desire to be right that makes us focus on the evidence that supports our beliefs. And dismiss the evidence that goes against us. That’s known as confirmation bias.

Confirmation bias is our tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information that confirms our preexisting beliefs.

So, by emphasizing a different subset of the facts, two people can arrive at different conclusions. Even when both groups of evidence are valid.

Most of us think we're critical thinkers. But, confirmation bias creeps into every decision we make. It's impossible to keep out.

Yet, before you throw your hands up in frustration, understand that you can overcome confirmation bias. In the process, you'll see that you may be ignoring robust evidence that you're wrong. Or at least not as correct as you thought.

The Science of Confirmation Bias

In a 1979, Stanford University researchers conducted one of the definitive confirmation bias studies.
In that research, they split participants into two groups. One group supported capital punishment, and the other opposed it. The researchers then showed each group two studies. One study confirmed their beliefs about the deterrent effect of capital punishment. And the other disconfirmed their ideas.

The researchers then asked each group to rate the studies. In an unsurprising result, each group rated the study that confirmed their beliefs as more convincing. The researchers also found increased polarization between the groups.

How Confirmation Bias Works

We find confirmation bias in how we seek, interpret, and remember information.

1) How we seek information

We have a strong desire to be correct. So, by default only seek out information that confirms our belief. But that means we end up testing our hypothesis with only confirming evidence, which leaves us with a half-tested idea. To reach a solid conclusion, we also have to seek out and test disconfirming evidence.

2) How we interpret information

Information is often open to many interpretations. We tend to interpret new information in a way that confirms our beliefs. That's why two people can see the exact same details yet reach different conclusions.

3) How we remember information

We're more likely to remember information that confirms our beliefs. Known as selective recall, it explains why people have difficulty remembering times they were wrong.

How the Strength of Our Belief Impacts Confirmation Bias

The most significant factor at play when it comes to confirmation bias is the strength of our belief. Our confirmation bias is harder to overcome when our belief is strong and more emotional. Likewise, it's easier to accept opposing views when we don't care about the subject.

When Is Confirmation Bias Good?

As humans, we want to be correct. So, we end up seeing the world in a way that fulfills that desire. Willard V. Quine and J.S. Ullian said it best in The Web of Belief:

"The desire to be right and the desire to have been right are two desires, and the sooner we separate them, the better off we are. The desire to be right is the thirst for truth. On all counts, both practical and theoretical, there is nothing but good to be said for it. The desire to have been right, on the other hand, is the pride that goeth before a fall. It stands in the way of our seeing we were wrong, and thus blocks the progress of our knowledge.”

It's the differences in how we see the world that cause conflict.

So, if confirmation bias is such a problem, wouldn’t natural selection have expelled it from our gene pool by now?

The simple answer is no. Confirmation bias sometimes benefits us.

First, it helps us avoid cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is when we try to hold opposing beliefs at the same time.

A state of cognitive dissonance makes us uncomfortable, triggering our fight or flight response. So, we end up either digging in on our beliefs or running away.

Confirmation bias erects a nice shell around us where we’re always right and never have to deal with the discomfort that comes from cognitive dissonance.

Second, our brain uses a lot of energy. And cognitive dissonance increases that load. So, our brain finds the fastest path to a comfortable solution to use less energy.

Remember the law of inertia. As long as we’re cruising along, happy in our beliefs, our brain isn’t distressed. But, when we’re confronted with evidence enough to change our mind, it takes extra energy to make that shift.

What Other Biases Magnify Confirmation Bias?

Several biases can magnify confirmation bias. Two of the most prevalent are optimism bias and false pattern recognition.

1) Optimism Bias

Optimism bias is our tendency to overestimate ourselves. For instance, if we’re overconfident in our knowledge of biology, we’re likely to only seek out confirming evidence when self-diagnosing an ailment.

2) False Pattern Recognition

False pattern recognition is our tendency to see patterns in random data. Confirmation bias can cause us to interpret those patterns in a way that supports a belief. So, to make a conspiracy theory appear authentic, we'll emphasize evidence linking two unrelated events together.

Avoiding Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is little more than an annoyance most of the time. But it can also have terrible results.

For example, a detective who’s convinced a suspect is guilty may ignore exonerating evidence.

Or, a friend may interpret random events as a sign that she should join a cult.

And one can see how confirmation bias can reinforce prejudice and racism.

So, how can we avoid confirmation bias? The truth is, we can't. But we can take steps to lessen its impact.

1) Stay curious.

Don’t think you know it all. And be open to learning.

We'll avoid taking a risk if it may prove us wrong. Yet, we grow when we take risks. And it's a sign of maturity and character when we can change our minds.

2) Question your automatic assumptions.

Our intuition kicks in right away when we’re presented with a challenging situation. By the time our reason wakes up, we’ve often already made up our minds about something.

Try to avoid letting your intuition run the show. Listen to your reason and question why impulse arrived at the conclusion it did.

3) Ask yourself if you’re missing something.

One great way to avoid a misunderstanding is to ask yourself if you don't know something. When someone has a different opinion than you, it's possible they know something you don't.

4) Seek out disconfirming evidence.

We’ll avoid looking for disconfirming evidence when we’re convinced we're right. But sometimes, disconfirming evidence is a faster way to reach a conclusion.

5) Keep an open mind.

Remember, it’s easier to see others’ confirmation bias than it is to see our own.

Confirmation Bias is Everywhere

We all think we’re critical thinkers. But confirmation bias is present in all our decisions.
Confirmation bias often doesn't create a problem. But it can cause us to make bad decisions and amplify polarization in our society. So, it's essential to understand where it comes from and how it sneaks into our judgments.

Bibliography

• N., Pam M.S. “What Is CONFIRMATION BIAS? Definition of CONFIRMATION BIAS (Psychology Dictionary).” Psychology Dictionary, June 29, 2015. https://psychologydictionary.org/confirmation-bias/.

• Crupi, Vincenzo. “Confirmation.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford University, January 28, 2020. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/confirmation/.

• Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015.

• Bazerman, Max, and Don Moore. Judgment in Managerial Decision Making, 8th Edition. John Wiley & Sons, 2012.

• Mauboussin, Michael J. Think Twice: Harnessing the Power of Counterintuition. Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press, 2013.

• Kunda, Ziva. “The Case for Motivated Reasoning.” Psychological Bulletin 108, no. 3 (1990): 480–98. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480.

• Lord, Charles G., Lee Ross, and Mark R. Lepper. “Biased Assimilation and Attitude Polarization: The Effects of Prior Theories on Subsequently Considered Evidence.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 37, no. 11 (1979): 2098–2109.

Image by Sam my-Williams from Pixabay

confused by Mark S Waterhouse from the Noun Project