The tendency to seek evidence that agrees with our position and dismiss evidence that does not.
Instinctively, most humans avoid evidence that contradicts their opinions. Contrary information is upsetting and confusing. We don't want to admit our beliefs may be wrong. Admitting to thinking errors feels like a put down. Wallowing in self-righteousness feels warm and fuzzy. The Confirmation Bias is so powerful that even when we understand it deeply and witness our intransigence, we find it hard to correct.
Michael Shermer, author of The Mind of the Market, says: "Confirmation bias is where we look for and find confirmatory evidence for what we already believe and ignore disconfirmatory evidence."
Lewis Wolpert, author of Six Impossible Things before Breakfast, says: "Beliefs, once acquired, have a kind of inertia in that there is a preference to alter them as little as possible. There is a tendency to reject evidence or ideas that are inconsistent with our beliefs." (page 85)
The Confirmation Bias sways us to...
• favor evidence that agrees with our position
• believe the future will bring new evidence to support it
• cling stubbornly and passionately to our stance
• adopt positions from traditions, religions and ideologies
Synonyms: The Semmelweis Effect, the belief bias, belief preservation, biased assimilation, belief overkill, hypothesis locking, polarization effect, the Tolstoy syndrome, selective thinking, myside bias, law of fives, and Morton's demon.
The Certainty Epidemic
We all seem convinced we're right about politics, religion or science these days. What makes us so sure of ourselves.
By Robert Burton, author of ON BEING CERTAIN
By Robert Burton, author of ON BEING CERTAIN
But why? Is this simply a matter of stubbornness, arrogance or misguided thinking, or is the problem more deeply rooted in brain biology? Since my early days in neurology training, I have been puzzled by this most basic of cognitive problems: What does it mean to be convinced? This question might sound foolish. You study the evidence, weigh the pros and cons, and make a decision. If the evidence is strong enough, you are convinced there is no other reasonable answer. Your resulting sense of certainty feels like the only logical and justifiable conclusion to a conscious and deliberate line of reasoning.
But modern biology is pointing in a different direction. It is telling us that despite how certainty feels, it is neither a conscious choice nor even a thought process. Certainty and similar states of "knowing what we know" arise out of primary brain mechanisms that, like love or anger, function independently of rationality or reason. Feeling correct or certain isn't a deliberate conclusion or conscious choice. It is a mental sensation that happens to us.
The importance of being aware that certainty has involuntary neurological roots cannot be overstated. If science can shame us into questioning the nature of conviction, we might develop some degree of tolerance and an increased willingness to consider alternative ideas—from opposing religious or scientific views to contrary opinions at the dinner table.
