The Danger of Confirmation Bias

Where do your beliefs and opinions come from? If you are like most people, you honestly believe your convictions are rational, logical, and impartial, the product of years of experience and objective analysis of the information available to you. In reality, we are all susceptible to a stubborn problem known as confirmation bias (sesgo de confirmación in Spanish): our beliefs often rest on paying attention to information that supports them while we tend to ignore information that challenges them.

Confirmation bias occurs through the direct influence of desire on belief. When people want a certain idea or concept to be true, they end up believing it is true. They are motivated by wishful thinking. This error leads the individual to stop collecting information once the evidence gathered so far confirms the views or prejudices they would like to be true.

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Understanding Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias that involves favoring information that confirms your previously existing beliefs or biases.

For example, imagine a person who believes left-handed people are more creative than right-handed people. Every time this person meets a left-handed and creative individual, they give greater weight to this “evidence” that supports what they already believe. This person might even seek out “proof” that further backs the belief while dismissing examples that do not support the idea.

Confirmation biases affect how we gather information, but they also influence how we interpret and remember information. For example, people who support or oppose a particular issue will not only look for information that backs their side; they will also interpret the news in a way that defends their existing ideas. They will also remember details in a way that reinforces those attitudes.

Why It Matters

Confirmation bias matters because it can make people cling tightly to false beliefs or give more weight to information that supports their beliefs than the evidence warrants. People can become overconfident in their beliefs because they have piled up supporting evidence, when in reality a great deal of contradictory evidence was ignored or discarded; evidence that, if considered, would lead to less confidence in those beliefs. These factors can lead to risky decisions and cause people to overlook warning signs and other important information.

The Danger of Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is dangerous because it locks people into their beliefs, makes them completely sealed off from reality, and can trigger interpersonal conflict, conflicts of interest, a string of poor decisions, and expulsion from the social circles they belong to. That last risk is especially serious because, for example, people who believe the Earth is flat gather with others who share the same confirmation bias and, in a sense, abandon reality and live inside a fantasy.

Imagine sending astronauts into space while basing your calculations on the belief that the Earth is flat. You would carry those deaths on your conscience for the rest of your life.

At a professional level it can damage your career, because to deliver results for your bosses or for yourself it is vital to base your decisions on real, reviewed, verified, and proven facts. Any error driven by confirmation bias will cost you credibility, the trust of colleagues and partners, and money as well.

Recommendations

Before taking a position on any matter, whether political, scientific, professional, social, personal, or otherwise, make a real effort to read all the facts, all the opinions, and especially all the studies related to the topic at hand, so you can form an opinion that is as impartial as possible and grounded in real, verified, and verifiable facts.

Falling into the trap of confirmation bias is easy and hard to reverse. You need to inform yourself about what you already agree with, and even more importantly you must inform yourself about what you do not agree with.