CONFIRMATION BIAS AT WORK: HOW OUR MINDS HANDLE PRE-SET BELIEFS

Reading time: 6 min

Have you ever come across the term “confirmation bias” and wondered what it means and how it affects us?

Confirmation bias affects most of us daily and is a major hindrance to People & Culture initiatives. To briefly describe it and make sure we’re all on the same page before starting, Britannica defines confirmation bias as “people’s tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with their existing beliefs. This biased approach to decision-making is largely unintentional, and it results in a person ignoring information that is inconsistent with their beliefs.”

You might think confirmation bias has no place in your life and that you make decisions rationally and logically, but unfortunately, almost all of us suffer from confirmation bias at some time or another. The human brain loves shortcuts and patterns because these mean it doesn’t have to work as hard. It can just base its current behavior on behavior that has worked in the past.

Changing beliefs and challenging preconceptions is hard. We all want our beliefs to be right, so we constantly look for evidence that they are. Realizing that this is just part of being human is the important first step. After all, you can’t tackle confirmation bias if you don’t acknowledge that you’re vulnerable to it.

And confirmation bias is a huge problem in today’s world, leading to a wide range of injustices, including racism, sexism, homophobia, and more. It can cause wage discrimination, biases in hiring, and many more problems.

So, how does confirmation bias usually play out? Let’s explore.

What does confirmation bias look like?

Let’s say that Marie believes people from Europe are more likely to be intelligent and highly educated than people from the United States. She thinks that people from the US lack culture and don’t understand other countries. She therefore looks for evidence that this is true in a wide range of spaces. The news articles she reads tend to be those that depict US citizens as unintelligent and highlight foolishness within the country. Articles that tell a different story will often be dismissed from her mind. She’ll tell herself that these are the exceptions, not the rule, and that they don’t mean her initial bias is wrong.

Marie is in charge of hiring, and when presented with candidates from America, she mentally dismisses them even when their credentials are excellent. She’s hardly even aware that she’s doing it, but her bias runs deep. Because she never hires or interacts with Americans, she never encounters real-life evidence to challenge that bias, and continues believing all Americans are less intelligent and less capable. Unless she deliberately takes steps to counter her confirmation bias, she will continue to unfairly base hiring decisions on nationality.

Let’s take another example. Anthony believes that anybody overweight has problems with control and is therefore less trustworthy and useful in the workplace. He believes their decision-making is questionable and while he sympathizes with the struggles of healthy eating, he’s reluctant to promote anyone who is overweight to a management position. When he reads articles about how important healthy eating is, he wonders how anyone can bear to be overweight in the world of information. Aware of his bias, one of his friends presents him with an article that proves weight gain can be a result of certain medications.

Anthony reads the article in full and agrees that there are occasional exceptions to the situation, but these don’t disprove his general thinking. He still continues to treat obese individuals with a certain amount of prejudice, dismissing their abilities and refusing to promote them.

Again, we see confirmation bias at work here. Even when presented with clear evidence to disprove the bias, Anthony retains his thinking. He doesn’t allow even supported facts to interfere with what he believes to be true.

Both of these are cases of confirmation bias, where facts are made to fit with beliefs, rather than beliefs being based in fact. In both cases, we can see real-world damage taking place as a result of the person’s refusal to confront their beliefs.

We’re all vulnerable to confirmation bias, but the good news is, we don’t have to be if we approach our beliefs in a different way.

Taking the power away from confirmation bias

There are various things you can do to reduce confirmation bias. Firstly, you have to figure out where your bias lies. This can be tricky initially! We all want to believe that we make our decisions rationally and that our beliefs are founded in fact. We will therefore try to find ways to prove to ourselves that we aren’t biased.

So, what can you do to identify biases?

Actively seek out views that don’t match your own perspective. Make connections with people you wouldn’t usually connect with; read books and newspapers you’d usually avoid. Find viewpoints that seem “wrong” to you and be curious about them. Open your mind to the possibility that they are right, rather than immediately looking for ways to disprove them. Pinpoint the discomfort you feel when you do this and challenge your brain’s pre-set beliefs.

You can do this in many ways in everyday life. Changing your sources of news is often a good starting point; if you always opt for the left-wing paper, try the right-wing one as well. If you tend to hang out with people who are aligned with you politically, try to expose yourself to different viewpoints.

While doing this, make sure you are truly listening and taking in information, rather than just going through the motions; there’s no point in reading an opposing perspective if you aren’t truly open to considering the points it makes.

By exposing yourself to other opinions, it gets easier to notice when you’re being biased, and this allows you to start working on that sense of bias. It takes a surprising amount of conscious effort to combat confirmation bias. Even identifying it can take time!

The more you do it, however, the easier it will become. Ask yourself why you believe X and what hard evidence you have. Next, try to disprove your own argument, actively seeking information that demonstrates it’s wrong. Scrutinize your thinking and try to disprove it. This is the best way to combat confirmation bias and start seeing the world more clearly. We can all benefit from taking this approach!

Time to get hands-on!

To deepen your understanding of how confirmation bias impacts workplace decisions, consider reading "Never Go With Your Gut." This book not only highlights the pitfalls of relying on intuition but also offers actionable steps to mitigate bias in your decision-making processes. By engaging with Dr. Tsipursky's insights, you can develop a more analytical approach to leadership and foster a culture of critical thinking within your organization.