Confirmation Bias Explained

Steve a lot of people have heard the term confirmation bias and I bet you that a lot of people really don't have a deep understanding of what it is so why don't we first let's just talk about what the hell does it mean yeah so the the short definition of confirmation bias is that it's a psychological phenomenon people human beings we are likely to um confirm things that we already believe in fact there's research which shows that we're also likely to confirm things that we want to believe yeah so there's there's a there's a desirability

bias as well as a confirming what we already think is true so we have like a map of the universe of the world like how the world operates what's true it's not true and we tend to be biased towards information which reinforces that belief so so in the real world yeah um Doom scrolling at 11 o'clock at night yeah and I find an article that you know you're correct about disbelief yeah you will accept that so then I'll I'll register that as hey I'm correct but I might be scrolling past things that tell me I'm

Incorrect and just dismissing them yeah so what so what so now you're getting one level deeper so how what are the components by which we build this confirmation by so one is we notice information right we register information that confirms our narratives more than information that doesn't which we just don't we don't you know notice them uh we remember that information right because it's meaningful to us it's like that supports what I already knew I'm gonna remember that's a keeper yeah right you file that thing away that's right and that that was an anecdote or

a piece of data that supports your narrative um and you accept it you you accept the veracity of it that it's true right right um but if you come across a piece of information that is disconfirming um we tend to do a few things we might miss it yeah right because it's not we don't notice the things that are in the background that don't are not important to our narrative we may dismiss it or we explain it away uh and then again what the research shows is that we mostly explain it away okay we find

some reason to dismiss it okay okay that makes sense just to say yeah we don't just like pretend like it doesn't exist we say ah that you know whatever those people are biased or you know they don't really know what they're talking about or they're a shill for big Pharma whatever you have we have our pre-made narratives of how to dismiss information that runs contrary to our narrative now where are you saying we're basically hardwired for this well I don't mean that you know we don't use the term hardwired you know it's very tempting uh

because you know the computers have you know hardware and software but the brain is doesn't have hardware and software it's a human behavior which really has wet wear right right there okay it's both at the same time and it changes it it's you know there are things that are kind of baked into how our brains are organized but but brain is an organ that's meant to interact with the environment and it is plastic it does change with use and with environment and culture and learning and all that stuff so there are two things that kind

of mishmashed together it's hard to cleanly separate them what we can say is that this is how most people behave okay so it's a common human trait yeah very common and yeah and it's powerful it's it's so incredibly powerful because here's the thing that's really powerful about confirmation bias is that it's basically subconscious right we're not really aware that we're doing it it's like it's operating in the background all the time filtering an incredible amount of data that's out there in the world and you think about especially our modern world that you say like you

could be scrolling through social media watching the news hearing stories from other people there's a tremendous amount of information that we are confronted with every day and we essentially filter out the stuff that's important to us we tend to accept the things that reinforce our narrative we find excuses to dismiss or explain away the things that don't and what we're left with is a powerful illusion of knowledge it's this really overwhelmingly powerful illusion that our belief is supported by a mountain of evidence right because it's there all the evidence is out there because we don't

realize that yes but you filtered that that evidence from an even bigger mountain of evidence some of which is neutral and some of which is disconfirming and the only way to really know what all of the evidence shows is what is science really right is to filter out the biases it's to say hey this is the big the big idea of lines was why don't we systematically look at data in in a way to to control for bias right they basically have a confirmation bias filter right that's what science the scientific method is that's the

backbone of the scientific method to get rid of human bias Yeah by by controlling observation and data collection in such a way that you're not selecting data right you're not remembering the hits and and forgetting the misses or whatever you're looking at all the data systematically mathematically you're controlling for variables you you make bias irrelevant you know is the goal of rigorous scientific research I have a personal question for you you've been a you've been a professional a quote unquote professional skeptic yeah 30 years at this point right but you know the majority of your

adult life um would you say that confirmation bias still has an effect on you yeah absolutely uh because it would take constant mental vigilance to completely eliminate the role of confirmation bias right all you could really do is minimize it and just to be aware of it when it happens and like we'll even say at times we're talking like well you know this is what it seems like to me this could just be confirmation bias so you have to constantly have that in the loop that's of course what we call metacognition right you're thinking about

your own thinking and that is one of the you know the the the one of those black and white situations where they're you know either you do or you don't think about your own thinking right so there are some people who just don't do it at all they're they're just but psychologists recall on the process level they're just going with the flow of their psychology the way their brain's functioning they're not trying to step back and think about their own thought process but once you do then you're you're that's a new process you're inserting into

the loop yeah the metacogdo Edition where you're saying is this confirmation bias what could what might I be doing how do I control for that so how do you control from confirmation bias first of all don't trust anything unless it's coming from an unbiased systematic kind of rigorous source so your sources are huge don't don't trust don't don't trust because it seems something seems to be a certain way that it is that way you have to appreciate how powerful confirmation bias can be and and therefore just to say I guess I don't know I don't

know until you know we get some objective information and so that like to me now it's it's definitely second nature like for you we're doing the show and think like questions come up all the time you know the first thing you do is say well is that really true let me look it up let me see if there's any objective data out there I know I think this is what I feel like it might be true so true as critical thinkers yeah you know and we're trying to develop our baloney detector kit yeah right this

is basically you're trying to program you know the way that you are aware of your own thinking you're right and you want red flags to go up right yeah I I you know I call it like the red flag reaction like yeah you want to say whoa I'm looking at this thing and I'm I'm trusting it I got to be careful you know I got to check my sources and you have so you have like these or when you want it to be true that's when you have to be especially careful yeah absolutely like when

I see information that does confirm what I want to believe or what I already do believe I have to I'm not just gonna not just gonna accept that yeah because that it's too easy you know and you have to actually like especially when we're researching a topic you want to seek out disconfirming information I want to find out who disagrees with me who believes something that's different and do they have any points to make you know and and if there's any factual disagreement it's again it's easy to say Well they're a shill or whatever yeah

yeah they're a True Believer like you know you get lots of things you could say or there's a it's a conspiracy these are all things that we could throw out there to just again just dismiss any information that's inconvenient to our narrative but we want we want that information we want to because that's that's the process forward that's that's how you control for confirmation biases to actively work against it and it takes it is work it's cognitive work and it's hard it takes vigilance you're not going to be perfect at it but at least when

you know somebody says something that really like you disagree with or really strikes you as like being against your basic worldview you have to reject your initial knee-jerk reaction and go how do I really know yeah how do I really know what's true and what isn't true here what is what's the most objective data we could find and and and and try to get to that and sometimes the information is really easily available you know it's just that nobody that didn't bother looking to see what the objective information was because they had they have they

have their answer that's the thing yeah they're right they've already got the lights are you feel like you have the answer because you've seen it it's out there so would you say yeah that the vast majority of the human population totally succumbs to confirmation bias yeah that's what that's what the research shows that's the I agree that is the the Baseline human behavior right it's the default mode basically like of human behavior and unless you're actively working against it which is not most people but I would argue that you know the the population that has

the least amount of of cognitive bias is critical thinkers because that's kind of by definition right exactly you know we're we're trying to train ourselves to think in a in a way where we're you know questioning all the information that yeah crosses the plate but again like the biggest confirmation bias that we have to watch out for is the the delusion that we're not subject to biases yeah because we're critical thinkers that's why I said that's why I asked you that question because even you know even the most trained critical thinkers you know you're still

going to fall for it yeah you let your guard down because there are filters in place you're not aware exists exactly right uh you know and those are the ones that are really bites you in the ass so you're basically saying like the the uncut or the subconscious part of your brain that is filtering that is doing it right because it's had the processes are happening without it hitting your Consciousness for example yeah um like in in our culture there is a social distance right but where most people and until psychologists started studying it weren't

aware that that existed as a phenomenon right because it was just ubiquitous it was everywhere everyone sort of subconsciously obeyed this social distance so like does this make you uncomfortable right but then you encounter somebody from another culture yeah that has a different yes so I've had that I've had that happen and and like it's weird because like you didn't know that that was a thing right now we do I mean but I'm just like even I remember my first I was in high school and I went to school with somebody from from Iran that

had a much closer social distance than we Americans are comfortable with that was like my first experience with the the fact that that existed as even an idea that social distance was a thing yeah yeah so then he makes you think what other things are out there that I'm not even aware exist yeah because everyone in my culture thinks it and so we don't know that's one that's one why I think being exposed to diversity to a lot of other you know World Views makes you more of a critical thinker because you it gives you

ways to think about your thinking like how like oh like people could differ in so many ways you realize that this is just my culture yeah this is just my bias this is not the way that it is it's not the way people are and I and I've always I've said frequently that there's there are Universal human filters that we're not aware exist and we won't be aware they exist until we actually engage with aliens you know people who you know creatures who are intelligent enough to come in a way that can they can communicate

with us but are the the um the result of a different set of evolutionary pressures like we won't realize what it means to be human right until we encounter something that's an interesting thought yeah I think um humility plays a big role here absolutely you know as a skeptic and as someone who's been talking about skepticism now you know going on 25 years um you know the humility component here has been such a first off it was hard to gain yeah it's a hard thing to earn you know it's a high energy state it is

you because you really gotta you really gotta question your thought process in a way and then when you finally get to a certain point you're like wow like like a light bulb begins to go on where you realize you know I've got to humble myself down I know so little yeah and the things that I do know a lot about they're still statistically there's people that blow away what you what you're good at you know yeah so what talk to me about humility in cognitive bias yeah so I mean humility is basically like I like

to call it neuropsychological humility it's it's a humility that stems from not a lack of self-esteem but from an understanding about the Frailty of human psychology and human neurology that our memories are biased our perception is biased our thinking is biased there are a lot of cognitive flaws in how humans process information and you know we you know we could I think the best state to be in is on a journey of self-discovery and metacognition you know where you're always trying to improve yourself incrementally in this way but you're never going to get there like

there's no destination to get to you there's no perfect yeah yeah you're going to get to so it's that that acknowledgment of of like unsolvable imperfection you just have to be comfortable with that yeah you have to be comfortable with uncertainty and with the notion that you're probably wrong about a lot of things and you may be wrong about some things that are really fundamental to your world for you yeah and you have to be open to that um often you know as Skeptics we get accused of being arrogant right because we have the audacity

to say what is and isn't true which of course not what we're doing we're saying if you take a scientific approach to this question this or this is sort of a valid way to approach it this is the data that's out there we're just saying you know let's look at the data ironically it's the true believers who are arrogant because they reject the possibility that they're wrong yeah that's right and their and their beliefs are based upon their own expertise their own feeling you know their own instinct or intuition right it's nothing objective or Universal

or right you're realizable it's like we just have to trust your intuition because you're so awesome and you're absolutely right that's arrogance they're not not saying hey let's listen to you're totally right I mean they're not even on the spectrum of critical thinking like you can't you can't talk to them and start using critical thinking in your discussion with them because they you know most pseudoscientists and True Believers or whatever you know we're talking about died in the world yeah yeah people that believe in UFOs or the moon hoax or whatever yeah it's very difficult

to talk critical thinking with them because they're they're utterly void of it they have a completely different process exactly yeah uh and like you know conspiracy thinking is the antithesis that's almost that's weaponized confirmation bias right they have a narrative and they have powerful you know self-reinforcing uh filters that maintain that narrative in the face of blatant disconfirming evidence because you know within a conspiracy theory any evidence that confirms you know that anything that confirms the conspiracy that is not present in other words like if this conspiracy were true there would be evidence of it

well the evidence for the conspiracy is missing because it's being suppressed right conspiracy well what about this evidence which disconfirms the conspiracy that's a false flag operation that was planted evidence so it'd be it insulates itself from evidence it's immune to evidence it is the end stage of confirmation bias it is like a systematic yeah you know again weaponized uh confirmation bias there's another aspect of confirmation bias that's important to to look at and one is that is that it is I think one of the primary mechanisms of prejudice and bigotry because think about it

you know you know when people have an idea about other groups of people how do they reinforce those ideas it's all confirmation bias right and of course they believe it to be true because they've seen it yeah yeah right but of course seeing it is all through their pre-existing filters it's a self-reinforcing filter uh and it takes it's hard to get out of that to get out of those prejudices right I've I've been wrong for a lot profoundly wrong for a long time because it's just the world I was swimming in you know it's the

Eco the information ecosystem we say yeah uh it's hard to get out of that you know this is why we we so firmly believe that we need to teach young children and teenagers critical thinking yeah you need to introduce it to them at a time when you know they haven't fully locked in who they're going to be yet you know you want it to be an influencer on them because critical thinking is in my opinion an incredibly healthy yeah way to go about living your life you know if you're if you're questioning your own beliefs

that all that means is that you're more likely to believe in things that are actually scientifically true than the average so people do have a truth bias you know they we do want to believe what's true uh so there's different sort of biases that are sort of competing with each other and you know whether one or the other prevails is very context dependent very situational all we're saying is we want to push the truth bias to the top right we want to ask about everything but is that really true and how do we know yeah

and the answer might be we don't know and or it's currently unknown or it might be I don't know the answer may be out there somewhere but I don't really know what the answer is um and you know here another way to look at this is that when we all when we are explaining a situation from partial information right which we do all the time um and we we've gotten to the point where we just say we don't freaking know like when we're talking about um why politicians for example do what they do and you

get to this realization it's like we have no idea what's going on behind the scenes oh yeah nothing we have several layers removed from from primary you know sources of information here and but people impose their narrative on this you know imperfect partial information would depending on their political point of view right you can always spin it in a positive or A Sinister way and rather than just saying you know guys we don't know we don't know what happened because we're we're just getting this incredibly filtered you know remote third-hand information about it right we

just have to be satisfied with that as an answer in some situations we or you have to you have to find better sources of information yeah the analysis by people who are in the know but we don't like that right we don't like to defer to experts yeah you know we want to know the answer ourselves but I think you know if you look at politics in general no matter where you are in the world you will see confirmation bias oh yeah like you know in its truest form right you know because you're and again

sometimes weaponized right so when it when confirmation bias becomes a little conscious and deliberate it's propaganda right it's the same thing basically but confirmation bias is basically unconscious propaganda you know whereas if you're doing it somewhat deliberately and again there's a blurry line between those two things sometimes you just don't care if it's true or not you take one fact they say this fact can be made to seem as if it supports my position so I'm going to throw that out there yeah politicians do this all the time and then the fact Checker is coming

to go all right that fact may be true but what they didn't tell you is all these other things that put it into context would show you that their conclusion they drew from it is completely false right exactly right exactly and but again unless you until you do that process but if you're aligned with that that politician or that political point of view you just accept that little nuggets yeah and if you're not you say well that's not the whole story but the truth is always much more complicated than the fiction and that that's that's

a problem well Steve thank you you have completely clarified it I don't think I'm ever gonna deal with confirmation bias again in my life I've got it I'm good you're good if you don't fix that problem no not it's again it's a high energy endless state of vigilance exactly yeah