Confirmation Bias
A cognitive bias where people tend to search for, interpret, and remember information that confirms their existing beliefs.
Confirmation Bias
"We Only Believe What We Want to Believe"
This is a colloquial explanation of Confirmation Bias. As a common Cognitive Bias, it refers to our unconscious tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs, while, as if through a filter, ignoring or devaluing evidence that contradicts our views.
Examples in Daily Life
- Information Cocoons: Social media algorithms constantly feed you content you like, making you feel that your perspective is the mainstream, thus wrapping you in an information cocoon that continually reinforces your existing views.
- Motivated Reasoning: When watching a political debate, we often only applaud the arguments of the candidate we support, while turning a deaf ear to the valid points made by the other side.
- First Impressions: If you form a stereotype about a person or group, you may subsequently only pay attention to individual cases that fit the stereotype, while ignoring numerous counterexamples.
The Great Enemy of Scientific Research
In scientific inquiry, confirmation bias is a "great enemy" that must always be guarded against. Researchers may unconsciously design experiments that are more likely to confirm their own hypotheses or tend to favor results that support their expectations when interpreting data.
To combat this human weakness, the Scientific Method has established a whole set of "counter-intuitive" mechanisms, such as:
- Falsifiability: A scientific theory must be potentially provable as "wrong."
- Peer Review: Allowing independent third parties to find faults.
- Double-blind trials: Ensuring that neither the experimenters nor the subjects know critical information about the procedure, to eliminate subjective interference.
Recommended Reading
- (Book) Thinking, Fast and Slow
- (Book) The Righteous Mind