Confirming my Confirmation Bias

Behavioral economics studies how we actually make decisions as opposed to how we think we do or how we ideally should. It is about cognitive biases. Our decisions are often influenced by one of many biases; tendencies to think in a certain way and not to take an objective view. One such cognitive bias, perhaps the most prevalent, is confirmation bias.

I have a confirmation bias. I seek information that confirms my view and opinion on a matter. Often I make a decision and then seek the facts, and only those facts, that support my choice, without any further investigation of other information. In a sense, the world corresponds to my view of it because I selectively seek that which corroborates my opinion. I tend to read that which confirms my worldview, I tend to mix with people that agree with me, and I focus on information that strikes a familiar chord.

Mark Twain once humorously said “Get the facts first, then you can distort them as you please”. The confirmation bias works the other way around; believe in your view and then find the facts to fit it.

In a study at the University of Minnesota, students were given a fictitious story about a week in the life of a woman named Jane. Jane acted in ways that in some cases were extroverted and in other cases introverted. After a few days the students gathered again and half of them were asked whether they think Jane would be a good librarian and the other half were asked whether they think she would be a good estate agent.

The group deciding whether Jane would be a good librarian, remembered her introvert attributes and acts and said she would be. The group deciding if she would be a good estate agent, did the opposite. They recalled her extrovert qualities and said she would indeed be a good estate agent. This, despite that the story they read about Jane contained an equal amount of references to extroverted and introverted behavior. Student simply interpreted the same information to fit and confirm the question they were asked. A further twist: when both groups were asked afterwards if Jane would be good at any other profession, both groups stuck to and re-confirmed their views.

Confirmation bias evolves because of our propensity to seek thinking shortcuts and not expend unnecessary energy in considering facts anew. Deliberate thinking which includes fact finding and checking, and putting yourself in the shoes of others is often difficult and seeps mental energy. Much easier to fit what we already know to the problem at hand – in other words think intuitively. Intuitive thought processes are quick, consume less energy but are often fragile, easily  confused, and make leaps and guesses without the full picture. 

To quote Francis Bacon: “The human understanding when it has once adopted an opinion - either as being the received opinion or as being agreeable to itself - draws all things else to support and agree with it.”

Our intuitive mind is gullible and biased to believe while our analytical mind is in charge of doubting, testing and unbelieving. Often our deliberate mind is otherwise occupied or tired and we simply believe information as we don’t have the mental energy to test and possibly override the correctness of the information.

Confirmation bias works in insidious ways after we have made a decision. Suppose you have to decide at work between two equally compelling strategies. It may be a long, tiring and difficult ordeal to choose one but once you have made up your mind something interesting happens. Suddenly, you find more and more reasons why the chosen strategy is the right one, and after some time even get to a point where you can’t believe the alternative strategy was an option at all. 

Is the strategy eventually successful? Confirmation bias to the rescue: when the decision turns out well we ascribe it to our capabilities and foresight and when it turns out bad we attribute it to external factors such as luck or chance.

Confirmation bias not only hinders us from making the best decisions, it prevents us from learning from our decisions – good or bad. A post mortem on a business decision gone awry is quite common but how often do we analyse why a choice turned out to be good? How often do we seek out arguments opposing our beliefs? And how often do we seek out people with directly contrary views on a matter we believe as true?

In the words of Terry Pratchett:

“Be careful. People like to be told what they already know. Remember that. They get uncomfortable when you tell them new things. New things…well, new things aren’t what they expect. They like to know that, say, a dog will bite a man. That is what dogs do. They don’t want to know that man bites a dog, because the world is not supposed to happen like that. In short, what people think they want is news, but what they really crave is olds…Not news but olds, telling people that what they think they already know is true.”