Confirmation Bias

Confirmation Bias 

Reflection Time 

Which is your preferred political party ? Which candidate would you vote for in the coming elections?

Which is your favourite car brand ?

Which brand do you always shop for ?

Which is your preferred school/ college/ university for sending your kids to ?

Which is your favourite place for vacation ?

Well, the above list can go on and on and we can keep listing our most preferred choice. 

But ever wondered, what makes a certain brand or a certain choice our preferred brand/ choice always ? - Well, the answer is that we don't let it become anything else, neither second/ third choice, nor a non-preferred choice inspite of any contrary evidence, empirical or otherwise !

This tendency of ours to hang on to our preference/ choice under any circumstance, is an indicator of presence of a bias known as "Confirmation Bias". When afflicted with this bias, we just don't let go of our affiliation to our preference/ choice.

Definition

Perhaps, the earliest definition of "Confirmation Bias" could be attributed to Sir Francis Bacon, the great English philosopher of the 16th century who stated the following:

"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. And though there be a greater number and weight of instances to be found on the other side, yet these it either neglects and despises, or else by some distinction sets aside and rejects, in order that by this great and pernicious predetermination the authority of its former conclusions may remain inviolate". 

Simplifying the above for the sake of better understanding, the "confirmation bias" is our tendency to interpret and infer new information in such a manner that it aligns with our existing beliefs and dispositions. When affected with confirmation bias, we tend to filter out any new information that contradicts our existing view and only look for evidence that stand in support of our existing beliefs.

The term "confirmation bias" was coined by English psychologist Peter Cathcart Wason (1924 - 2003), who, in 1960s performed an experiment, popularly known as Wason's Rule Discovery Test,  https://bit.ly/2Udslb3,  where he challenged the subjects to identify a rule applying to a numbers specific problem/ task.The test proved that most people do not try to at all to test their hypothesis (most of the subjects established the same hypothesis) critically but rather to confirm them. Most of the subjects in the test tried solutions to prove their hypothesis and very few tried solutions to disprove their hypothesis. 

Identifying the Occurence of the Bias

A clear indication of the occurence of the bias is when we 

• start ignoring the contradictory evidence (to our existing beliefs) as exception or special case
• start seeking information that upholds our beliefs and start ignoring the information that challenges them
• start interpreting every information from our own viewpoint 

Why this Bias Occurs ?

Perhaps, few key reasons could be 

• Selective Attention - a process in which people react to certain bits of information or stimuli and not others
• Preference to remain in Comfort Zone - Challenging the existing beliefs would mean moving out of the comfort zone to gather and apply evidence to prove contrary of our existing beliefs.
• To appear as Intelligent, where the entire exercise of proving things against our existing set of beliefs could put question mark on our intelligence  

Impact of Confirmation Bias

• Perhaps the biggest impact this bias has on us is in restricting our ability to develop/ adopt multiple perspectives/ viewpoints during decision making
• limiting our ability to absorb/ process new set of information.
• the bias leaves us bound even in case of trivial, simple and unimportant tasks/ choices
• results in building/ developing a narrow-minded or a biased-view
• prevents us from looking at situations objectively

Real - Life Occurence of Confirmation Bias 

The confirmation  bias is clearly evident in areas like religion, politics, economy, healthcare, journalism and human relations. Some examples of the same are as mentioned below

• Journalism - in the era of "fake news" and "paid news", it may not come as a surprise to us as to how "confirmation bias" is being used to accentuate our existing beliefs/ choices
• Medicine - here it may occur on both sides, whether practitioner or patient
• Inter-personal relationship where every action is perceived or twisted to support our own existing expectations/ beliefs

Overcoming/ Addressing Confirmation Bias 

• Write down our existing set of beliefs and try to find disconfirming evidence
• Practice "Falsification", where we tend to find evidence against our existing hypothesis/ beliefs
• Being curious about knowing/learning opposing views to our own beliefs and listening intently to others' views  
• Avoid sticking to any one opinion and develop new and divergent opinions
• Be emotionally distant from the issue 

Always remember to give proper weightage to the information that is warranted by evidence