Your confirmation bias is killing your ability to grow
Abstract: People think they know what Confirmation Bias is, some even like to point theirs out to other people, yet we should stop and think, for a moment, how pernicious it is to all of us.
Are you comfortable when someone disagrees with you? Do you search out those who think differently or surround yourself in the comfort of other people who think and believe as you do? Does this whole paragraph make you feel uncomfortable? If so, you have two options: either run for a 'safe space' or understand you may have a problem with Confirmation Bias.
The Bias
I used to have a boss who liked to say something like, "I always torture data until it tells me the truth." After watching him for a while, it was clear that he wasn't looking for 'the truth' (whatever that might be), but he was waiting to hear what he already believed. When he didn't hear it, he would keep asking more and more pointed questions until he heard what he wanted to hear. When John McCain talked about his torture, he said that prisoners "...will say whatever they think their torturers want them to say if they believe it will stop their suffering."
For my old boss, the same was true about data.
In both these examples, we can see Confirmation Bias, or Myside Bias, at work. Wikipedia defines these as "the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values."
I prefer the more straightforward definition you can find on thethinkingshop.org's Critical Thinking Cards. They describe it as a bias where "you favor things that confirm your existing beliefs.'"
It is clear to see why this bias is so powerful. People agreeing with you make you feel good. It strokes your amygdala and stops it from hijacking. Who doesn't like to hear "you are right" or has ever been tempted to say, "I told you so" every so often? But it is the times when people disagree and argue with us where we learn the most.
Few of us search out people who challenge us, and as leaders, it may be one of the most important things we can do. One of my favorite TV shows was Sports Night. It only ran for two seasons, but it is full of many gems of wisdom. Among my favorite is this quote from the Managing Editor of this fictional sports network. The charter was called Isaac Jaffe, played by Robert Guillaume, and in an episode called ‘The Hungry and the Hunted’ (1998), he said the following:
It's taken me a lot of years, but I've come around to this: If you're dumb, surround yourself with smart people. If you're smart, surround yourself with smart people who disagree with you."
[Note: the use of 'dumb' is not as acceptable as it was in 1998, but it is left here to maintain the integrity of the quote.]
Check your sources
On its surface, it doesn't seem like Confirmation Bias is too dangerous.
If it makes some people feel good, that's okay; not everyone wants to be challenged. The problem is that people who believe this are doomed to a life of Identity and do not live in Possibility. It is hard to go forward and live it to a better future in this world because you are being dragged back into your past. No place is this more accurate than in social media.
It is generally believed that most Americans now get some or part of their news from social media. The Pew Research Center's report found that 88% of Americans recognized that social media companies now have at least some control over the mix of the news that people see each day. That would be fine if our social media sources gave us various news input to learn, but it does the opposite. Your bias is amplified by who you pick to follow and algorithms that tend to offer you people who have the information you are likely to agree with while excluding opposing views. (See the Ted Talk: Beware online "Filter Bubbles.") That means our sources of news are preselected to reinforce what we already believe.
Of course, it gets worse when the so-called 'fact-checkers,’ whom in theory we should want to trust to give is ‘truth,’ is also under the thumb of Confirmation Bias. You can see it happen on both sides of the political spectrum, where accepted sources feed each other and are only referenced by each other. It becomes the circular firing squad of closed minds.
Sadly, these problems extend way past the world of social media and news. Even those we should most 'trust,' like scientists and doctors, also suffer from this affliction.
It’s decided, you know.
I am amused by people who want to trust scientists (primarily those who agree with what they believe) but have no clear understanding of what is known as the 'scientific method.' Si’ Francis Bacon outlined this method to provide logical, rational problem-solving across many scientific fields.
The basic steps of the scientific process are:
Make an observation that describes a problem.
Create a hypothesis.
Test the hypothesis.
Conclude and refine the hypothesis.
Note step 4.
Refine the hypothesis.
Don’t give up.
Don't say, "it's been decided. Move on."
The actual 'scientific method' requires continental testing and retesting. You may be getting a sense that I am referring to a COVID-19 era where this problem seems significant, but it's been a problem long before Fauci.
Across the millennia, scientists have often resisted discoveries by selectively interpreting or ignoring unfavorable data. Studies have shown that scientists rate studies that report findings consistent with their prior beliefs more favorably than studies reporting results inconsistent with their previous views. That is the main reason for Peer Reviews, but it has been reported that even that can be susceptible to groupthink.
Even Doctors, as hinted before, can get caught out by Confirmation Bias. Based on the Scientific Method, their diagnostic approach tends to help them avoid being caught in a bias trap. They suffer from the Availability Heuristic – drawing conclusions of importance based on the information they have at hand, which may be overestimated. A great example is COVID - how seriously someone takes COVID is often directly related as to how it has impacted their life or not.
Then there are politicians, but then don’t confuse confirmation bias with outright lying.
Confirmation Bias and Free Speech
The biggest driver of Confirmation Bias might be the fight against free speech. For those who find free speech uncomfortable, I encourage you to reread the quote from Sports Night above.
If that doesn't do it for you, here is another Aaron Sorkin quote from the movie "The American President" (1995):
America isn't easy. America is advanced citizenship. You've gotta want it bad, 'cause it's gonna put up a fight. It's gonna say, "You want free speech? Let's see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who's standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country cannot just be a flag. The symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest.
Of course, you may be against free speech in principle, but that's a different problem.