Confirmation Bias

What is confirmation bias?

Confirmation bias refers to the tendency to look for or interpret information in a way consistent with one's beliefs.

Explanation

Confirmation bias occurs when people seek, interpret, and remember information confirming their existing ideas. It is often unintentional and results in ignoring information that goes against one's convictions.

Existing beliefs can include expectations in a given situation and predictions about a particular outcome.

Confirmation bias is especially pronounced when information supports an issue perceived as relevant or essential to an individual.

How can you avoid confirmation bias?

Challenge your convictions

When developing hypotheses for critical questions with your team, you can avoid confirmation bias with popular methods such as "red-team-blue-team" or pre-mortems.

In the "red-team-blue-team" method, you randomly assign people to argue for a particular decision and others to argue against it. In a pre-mortem, you collectively outline a hypothetical in which the conviction you hold was false and led to a wrong decision.

Both methods force you to take the other side of the argument and thus challenge your convictions.

Hold yourself accountable

Use quantifiable KPIs to determine whether you made a good or bad decision. This way, you can hold yourself accountable for adverse outcomes.

But watch out: Your confirmation bias might lead you to measure only KPIs that paint a positive picture of the situation. Be honest with yourself and select only KPIs that matter to the issue at hand.

Further reading

Source Britannica
Thinking fast and slow