The first cognitive bias that we will review in the series “Outsmart Your Biases” is the Confirmation Bias, that is, the tendency to search for, interpret and recall information in a way that confirms our opinion, and neglect information that contradicts it.
Confirmation bias is one of the most common biases that have direct consequences on our personal life and professional career. The examples are endless. We often seek information to prove that our political party is right. When we like a person, we don’t want to see her character flaws. To prove the validity of our proposed strategy we search on google for “Is the [proposed strategy] better than [opposite strategy]?”. In a job interview, we frame our questions in a way to confirm our beliefs or our first impression of the candidate. etc… Try to figure out in which decision you were prone to it.
Jeff Bezos about today’s internet: “a Confirmation Bias Machine”.
To outsmart your confirmation bias, you may use the following tricks:
- Ask for an outside view of the topic at hand and seek criticism.
- Search for the pros and cons of the different options.
- Suppose the opposite: be the devil’s advocate.
Such debiasing strategies can be performed in brainstorming format, in informal discussion, etc.
mohamadkoteich.org 
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