Exploring Our Cognitive Errors: A Deep Dive Into Confirmation Bias

Mark Twain once said,

 “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.“

Despite having an incomprehensible amount of information right at our fingertips, it’s surprisingly challenging to discover the truth. We can point fingers at devious journalists, bloggers looking to go viral, and corrupt politicians. However, one of the biggest culprits standing between you and the facts can be found by taking a look in the mirror.

There are two dastardly villains foiling the truth seeking mission:

1.Human Emotion and Subjective Opinion

2.Confirmation Bias

Point 1 will be addressed later, but let’s start things over with point 2:

Confirmation Bias Defined by Investopedia:

“Confirmation bias is the tendency of human beings to actively search for, interpret, and retain information that matches their preconceived notions and beliefs.”

Let’s unpack exactly what this means.

Reader Warning!!!: This is quite a heavy post. I’ve been careful to not make any assumptions in my own quest to be a truth seeker and truth sharer (although I’m sure I’ve made some regardless). The research process has brought to light my own confirmation biases, and it has helped me make sense of all those “How could he/she/they possible believe that!!!!!!!” thoughts that have been particularly prevalent in the past year. Grab a cup of coffee, and let’s dive in!

Part I: What Does the Research Say?

Warren Buffet famously said,  “What the human being is best at doing is interpreting all new information so that their prior conclusions remain intact.”

Prior beliefs, first impressions, and personal preferences will influence how we search for, interpret and retain new information.

Let’s say you love enjoying a glass of red wine after a long day. You are perusing the internet and stumble upon an article saying that drinking 1 glass of red wine a day is great for you. Sweet! *runs to the store to buy wine*. The next day, you see a friend share an article that’s says the opposite; drinking red wine every day could severely impair your total health! Pshhhhhh… yeah right!!!!! You will likely dismiss the new information as false as you fill up your glass.

If you buy a new house, you’ll dote over all the incredible features it has while dissing the runner up. If you are Christian, positive occurrences throughout the day are a friendly confirmation that God has got your back. If you pile your money into Disney stock, you’ll agree with analysts who say it’s a great buy while being skeptical of the naysayers (The power of priors: How confirmation bias impacts market prices is an interesting read revealing how confirmation bias can impact the markets.) From big issues, like mask wearing and election fraud, to inconsequential occurrences, like guessing which way a swirl of dots is moving (as demonstrated in People show confirmation bias even about which way dots are moving), confirmation bias is a self imposed barrier between us and the truth.

The presence of confirmation bias has been proved by research again and again and again. Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises published in the Review of General Psychology in 1998 by Raymond Nickerson offers an exceptional overview of pivotal confirmation bias research. The paper touches on research proving confirmation bias in all facets of our lives including how we view others (p. 182), confidence in our own opinions (p. 189), and policy decisions (p. 191).

Here are some key takeaways. Head to the page number for a debrief on the studies leading to the conclusions. Many of the points helped me make sense of behaviors I have struggled to understand, and I’ve added a few little “aha” moments in.

• People tend to look for information that supports existing beliefs while avoiding information that disagrees (p. 177). On top of that, people tend to put more weight in evidence that supports existing beliefs while being less receptive to information that disagrees (p 178). (This helps explain how conspiracy theories can run rampant.)
• People have a knack to see what they are looking for. If you think someone is going to be kind and charming, you’ll likely find those qualities. If you think someone is going to be nasty and mean, you may be suspicious if she is perfectly lovely. (P. 181) (This helps explain why the battle for equality is so challenging. Implicit bias coupled with systemic racism, sexism, and homophobia can lead to truth-marring presumptions. Click HERE for my research on implicit bias and racism )
• Prior expectations and first impressions will impact the qualities you see in that person moving forward. A 1983 study by Darley Gross showed two groups of people a video of a child taking a test. One group was told the child was from an affluent family, the other was told the opposite. When asked how the child performed, group one believed the performance was above grade level while group two believed the performance was below grade level. (p 182) (This helps explains the massive income gap in the US. How can children from disadvantaged households move forward when everyone is expecting them to fail?)
• As a person learns about a topic, the information received early on will hold more weight. This is known as “the primary effect.” (p 187) (This helps explain why mask wearing became a polarized issue. The CDC initially said mask-wearing wasn’t necessary, and people latched on to that information from the get-go.)
• Confirmation bias helps us understand certain behaviors in history, including witch hunts (p. 190), absurd medical treatments (p 191), jury behavior (p 193), and hesitancy to accept scientific discoveries (p 194),

For something a bit less tedious, Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds, published in 2017 by Elizabeth Kolbert, is another great read that offers a nice synthesis of interesting research that is in line with the points above.

Based on the available research, I feel comfortable concluding that confirmation bias severely inhibits our ability to objectively find and interpret new information.

The first step in overcoming confirmation bias is understanding that it exists. So congratulations! We’ve made strides in the right direction! We also aren’t totally enslaved to our own rational errs. According to a 2001 study, Clinging to Beliefs: Constraint-satisfaction Model, people are more likely to put old opinions aside if the new information has a strong explanation.

There’s one huge issue…

We need to actively seek out and read information that contradicts our current views. A feat that is absurdly challenging. I”ll explain why in part 2…

Part 2: Finding New Information

Despite having so many opinions, views, ideas, and perspectives in the palm of our hand, we tend to get trapped in a bubble that shuts those out. The bubble’s thick wall is reinforced by what news we read, who our friends are, and our own subjective tastes and preferences.

First things first, not all news is neutral. Check out the media bias chart below to see where your go-to news source might lean.

Media Bias Chart from All Sides

(Also check out this chart from Ads Fonte Media!)

Our confirmation bias leads us to tune into news sources that align with our political beliefs. Conservatives will tune into Fox News and scroll through The Daily Wire, liberals flick on MSNBC and check out Huff Post. The proof is in the data. A 2019 survey conducted by the Pew Research Center found the following results:

A 2020 poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov Poll found that not only did respondents pick a news source in line with their own political views, but they actively distrust the other side.

Choosing to get news from sources that we agree with while actively distrusting “the other side” is the perfect recipe for skewed opinions…. our biases are confirmed.

What can we do?: Understand which direction a news source leans and actively choose to read about the same story from different perspectives. And remember, just because something is posted online, doesn’t mean it’s true.

There are some simple questions we can ask ourselves when determining the validity of a source:

• Where is the source coming from? Is it an established research center? Personal blog? Right leaning news source? Left leaning news source? Government? Etc.
• Does the author back up his/her statements with sources and research?
• Are those sources peer reviewed and reliable? (yes then means clicking on a hyperlink every so often…like I hope you’re doing with this post!)
• What are other people saying about the topic?

The plot thickens . As we peruse an online news source or social media platform, our clicks, likes, and scrolls are being furiously tracked and analyzed. The algorithms process our data, then hit us with suggestions it thinks we will like, surrounding us with something known as a filter bubble. On the one hand, we can easily read about topics that interest us. On the other hand, we likely won’t come across conflicting opinions.

What can we do?: THIS article from Farnam Street Media offers great ways to pop the bubble.

• Use ad-blockers
• Turn to more neutral news sources
• Be aware of distinguishing between entertainment and education
• Use Incognito browsing and deleting our search history
• Block browser cookies

The plot thickens even further! We tend to be friends and part of social groups that share similar opinions. As the United States becomes more and more polarized, this becomes more and more of an issue.

A survey by the Pew Research Center in 2016, Partisanship and Political Animosity, found the following results: 84% of Republican respondents had some democratic friends, 14% said they had no democratic friends. 74% of Democrat respondents said they had some Republican friends, 24% said they didn’t have any.

Fast forward four years….Check out the below graph from THIS source based on data from the Pew Research Center. A whopping 38% of Trump supporters who responded don’t have any friends who support Biden and 42% of Biden supporters who responded don’t have any friends who support Trump.

Note: I’m not convinced the available data is strong. While I wouldn’t take the exact numbers as truth, I do think the trends seem reasonable.

Oy Vey!!!

Not only do we seek out news in line with our opinions, but we tend to surround ourselves with people who share those opinions as well. Every click, scroll, and post tends to confirm what we already believe to be true, fueling our biases further and further until we’re so entrenched in our own idea of what’s “right” that any conflicting opinions seems something short of preposterous!!!!

But why?

The quick and easy answer:

Our brains don’t enjoy being unsure or conflicted. It feels good to be right, and stressful to be wrong.

The longer answer:

According to Psychology Today, “cognitive dissonance is a term for the state of discomfort felt when two or more modes of thought contradict each other.”

Every time we come across information that conflicts with our prior opinions, the brain flies into a distressed tizzy of cognitive dissonance and the posterior part of the medial frontal cortex (pMFC), insula and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) light up, according to What Happens to the Brain During Cognitive Dissonance?

Confirmation bias is a wonderful tool for avoiding this mental distress because it encourages both challenge avoidance and reinforcement seeking.

Nothing makes a post on a food blog more exciting than a little neuroscience! Here are some fascinating studies that I’d recommend giving a look if you’re interested in confirmation bias at a neural level.

• Neural correlates of cognitive dissonance and choice-induced preference change: This study looked into whether or not we will change our opinions to match our choices, something known as choice-induced preference change. Results based on participant reporting coupled with brain imaging found that choice does in fact create preference. For example (made by yours truly, not found in this paper): let’s say you enjoy raspberries and blackberries equally. Being forced to choose one sparks cognitive dissonance. Which one should you choose?! I’m stressed! If you choose raspberries, your brain will say, “Raspberries are actually better!”, and you can exhale a sigh of relief knowing the right decision was made.
• The neural basis of rationalization: cognitive dissonance reduction during decision-making further demonstrates how decisions will impact our opinions.
• The neural basis of confirmation bias shows that the posterior medial prefrontal cortex is key in confirmation bias. The researchers found that “Existing judgments alter the neural representation of information strength, leaving us less likely to alter opinions we disagree with.“
• Confidence drives a neural confirmation bias found that having high confidence in a decision “leads to a striking modulation of post-decision processing and the emergence of a behavioural confirmation bias”

The final piece of the puzzle…

Based on the presented evidence, we can conclude that humans are prone to confirmation bias as we search for, interpret, and retain information. Our brain and neural patterns lend a hand in all of it. While confirmation bias makes us feel good by arming us against cognitive dissonance, it mars our ability to be truth seekers.

As mentioned in section 1, a pivotal step in beating confirmation bias is acknowledging that it exists and exercising self awareness to question if your biases are impacting your opinions. Section 2 has a handful of tips for how to seek out information and pop the filter bubble.

There’s a big elephant lurking in the metaphorical room of this blog post:

What does “the truth” even mean?

Humans are emotional creatures driven by feeling. Rational thought enters the scene as the prefrontal cortex kicks in, allowing us to put carnal impulses at bay. But subjective opinions on “right” and “wrong” persist which lends itself to different “truths.”

Some topics are conveniently quantifiable, making it easier seek the truth. I.E: diesel fuels leads to X amount of pollution. N-95 masks block X amount of pathogens. X amount of people have died due to Malaria. But other topics, particularly on the macro level, aren’t as straightforward. I.E Do guns kill people or do people kill people? Is human life at inception or is it when the fetus can survive outside the womb? Are trickle down economic policies effective or would higher taxes on the rich lead to more total economic wealth? The ability to find the objective, data-backed “truth” isn’t always possible, which means each individual develops a subjective truth.

The Good News!

Despite misinformation and partisanship, let’s not forget that it used to be worse! Humans have made incredible progress in the past few thousand years towards curbing instinct and embracing rational thought. My dad wrote a wonderful post, Why the Good Old Days Weren’t So Good that brings recent progress to light.

The concept of subjective truth is a head-scratching paradox. However, we can get closer and closer to the objective truth by understanding the presence of confirmation bias in ourselves and others. Approaching new information with an open mind and seeing being “wrong” as an indicator of becoming more informed compared to a sign of weakness or ineptitude are steps in the right direction.