We humans know so little about everything that's going on in our lives, yet we, so very often, rush into making dangerous simplifications. What's more alarming is that most of us are doing it without being consciously aware.
We are at the mere mercy of mechanisms polished by evolution during hundreds of thousands of years. Without these simplifications, cognitive biases and heuristics, it's likely that we wouldn't be here. Now, let me explain...
The human mind is prone to logical fallacies - that is, faults in thinking. It's not that you have them and I don't. It's that the lives of each of us are driven by them. And, god, there are so many biases!
Not knowing about your brain's inherent flaws and you're living a life directed by preconceptions, heuristics (mental shortcuts, often detrimental), stereotyping, dogmatism and most dangerously, gullibility. Others who know of these flaws can manipulatively take advantage of you.
Knowing about your mental flaws, thus illustrating critical thinking skills, may confer protection - to a certain degree.
My purpose with this series is to discuss as many cognitive fallacies as possible, to give you examples so that you can better understand them and to suggest ways to avoid falling prey to them - whenever possible.
I started the series with the priming effect, which to my surprise was received better than I thought. Here I'm going to discuss the confirmation bias, one of the most encountered in our daily lives.
Seeking Validation
As someone once said, 'when we go looking for a particular response, we are much more likely to arrive at it.'
Let me start with an example from my life.
In my pursuit for an ever leaner physique, I started religiously following a diet back in late September of 2013. I reached my desired goals in a matter of 2 months. The ketogenic diet was like magical to me. I even wrote a book about my journey.
I was a true believer. I tried talking my family and my friends into following the diet. I was advocating about it all over social media. I got in touch with people who shared a similar experience. And I almost always avoided confronting disconfirming evidence about the diet.
My point is not to bash the diet. I think it can be extremely helpful for many people, for people who lose weight and for people with different disorders and diseases. But it's not all milk and honey. There's a lot of misinformation out there and many people do it wrong and they wonder why it's not working for them...
Back to the confirmation bias, here's a short video on cognitive fallacies. For the confirmation bias, skip to 1:50:
With that, I think you got a good idea of what this bias is all about, but let me give you the formal definition:
"Confirmation bias refers to tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions, leading to statistical errors."
As pointed out in an article in Psychology Today:
"When people would like a certain idea/concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true. They are motivated by wishful thinking. This error leads the individual to stop gathering information when the evidence gathered so far confirms the views (prejudices) one would like to be true."
As soon as we form a view about something, we only seek information to confirm our belief, and at the same time, we reject or ignore information in contradiction with it. We are very subjective in perceiving reality. Well, isn't that obvious?!
[Sadly]((https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/science-choice/201504/what-is-confirmation-bias):
"We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices. Thus, we may become prisoners of our assumptions."
Ok, so how do we deal with this?
1. Be aware of your inherent bias.
Know that by nature you're only seeking confirmatory evidence for any idea you may have/hold.
2. Use this strategy on the web
Instead of searching this way:
- "benefits of the ketogenic diet"
- "how does the ketogenic diet help you"
- "muscle growth under the ketogenic diet evidence"
- "proof that the ketogenic diet....."
Try something along the lines:
- "why the ketogenic diet may not be good for you"
- "pitfalls of the ketogenic diet"
- "downsides of the ketogenic diet"
- and so on
Plus, searching for and reading articles from people who are emotionally invested in the idea (like I was with the keto diet) is not a good practice. Evidence in support/in lack of support for ideas should be sought from unbiased sources (as unbiased as possible).
3. Instead of opinions (of others), look for data (numbers)
This is tricky because data can be misleading (purposefully or unpurposefully). So, you'd have to teach yourself some statistics (and behavioral economics).
4. Try to learn more about your idea before you turn it into a belief
In any circumstances, it may be better avoiding beliefs or ideologies.
5. Look for objective evidence
Look at all possible sides of the idea: pros, cons, supporters, naysayers, and so on.
6. Be willing to change your 'take' on the idea in face of solid disconfirming evidence
If someone tells me that the ketogenic diet doesn't work for them, I shouldn't rush into rationalizing why they are doing it wrong. Instead, I should ask questions, see what they did, see how it went, etc.
7. Minimize emotional investment
This is extremely hard to achieve because we solidify our beliefs by attuning emotions to them, by attaching ourselves to them. Hence, we make it harder to detach from a belief when strong disconfirming evidence is presented to us.
Ending Thoughts
As I wrote in the past:
"Please don’t try and think that once you know something, you hold the ultimate truth. Please don’t try and force personal biases onto other people. Don’t try to prove people they are wrong. You’ll most likely obtain the adverse effect."
About a century ago, Dale Carnegie brilliantly put it:
A man convinced against his will, is of the same opinion still.
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Cristi Vlad, Self-Experimenter and Author