Confirmation Bias

Recently, I came across the term: "Confirmation Bias". I found it very interesting. It can be observed in many situations. And it is necessary to understand what it is and necessity to overcome or reduce it.

                             

Confirmation bias refers to a tendency of people to notice what confirms their beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts their beliefs.

Confused?????

Don't worry. Here's a simple example. It should help you understand the concept easily.

EXAMPLE 1:

Mark wants to purchase a new car. Search is on. Personally, he loves XYZ car. He wants to buy it. But the sales of XYZ in the market are very low. There are also other associated issues like- poor after sales service, etc.

According to Mark, this is the best car. Now, whenever he searches for the information and reviews of XYZ on Google, forums and related sites, he tends to agree with the opinions, reviews and points expressed in favor of XYZ. He tends to believe in those. He 'wants' to believe that they are true. In fact, he 'wants' them to be true!

On the contrary, he rejects the opinions, reviews and points which are against XYZ. He 'believes' that they are false. He ‘wants' them to be false.

I think this example should fall under confirmation bias. This signifies that old ‘heart versus brain’ conflict. In hindsight, we know that the product is not worth...not that good. But our heart is hopelessly in love with it. Now, to convince the brain, we search for 'excuses' to buy, by searching for positive reviews (by ignoring negative ones). This may be the human tendency to reduce the cognitive dissonance.

In my opinion, the cognitive dissonance is less when we are buying the product which is already successful and established in the market. If we like the successful products then the confirmation bias is less. Considering the lots of positives in the product and many other people associated with it, we are more open to accept few negative aspects of it.

Second example that could fall under confirmation bias is given below. This is a case of 'selective recall'.

EXAMPLE 2:

Tom is not able to deliver one requirement on time. The client, Kevin, gets very angry. He cites various instances of late delivery by Tom's team. He expresses strongly that Tom's team has the history of late deliveries.

Now, Kevin does not recall those instances where Tom's team delivered multiple requirements well before the schedule or the requirements which he (Kevin) cited were very minor. He also forgets the requirements completed by Tom's team even though they were not the part of agreement. He does not recall the multiple instances of incomplete and incorrect requirements given by Kevin's team to Tom, which caused a lot of rework to be done by Tom and his team.

It is applicable not only to the products. It can be observed in many aspect of the life. You can try to identify the personal experiences where you were ‘confirmation biased’. It would be a fun activity. Please share few of those in comments section below.

I found this theory very exciting. Its study has application in understanding human behavior and motivation. What do you think? Please share your thoughts through the comments.