Steadfast Finances
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Confirmation Bias: Search for Information that You Don’t Want to Hear
I’m a little weird in that I rarely read articles or watch television programs that I fully agree with. I find that it makes me consider an alternative point of view or tweaks my thought process to include new variables into the decision making process that my (occasionally arrogant) analytical brain hasn’t deemed valuable.
This is why you will often find me looking at the “against” side, rather than the “for” side, of the decision making process (e.g. multiple posts with the “10 Reasons ABC is a Bad Investment” theme). It’s not that I’m a gloomy glass half empty person, it’s just that I’m trying to identify all the reasons I shouldn’t do something to solidify my beliefs in why that I should.
Apparently, this concept puts me in the minority.
According to the latest psychological study mentioned in this WSJ video, twice as many people tend to go searching for information that they find agreeable to their preconceived notions or parallels their belief structure. In other words, if someone wants to believe X and Y but not Z, they won’t go looking for Z.
[RSS & email readers please click to site for video]
It’s only natural why confirmation bias exists: no one wants to hear their idea sucks, find out their answer is completely wrong, or even be forced to read about an idea that pushes them outside of their comfort zone.
If you think the idea is complete hogwash, consider these scenarios:
- If you’re really into politics, do you only read your news from one source? (Fox News vs. MSNBC?)
- If you’re bullish on the stock market, do you only read articles with catchy titles that supports your thesis? (Gold bugs vs. gold bears?)
- Have you ever been 100% certain your favorite sports team would win a game against your conference rivals, but your team is a 14 point underdog?
In the end, I always find it helpful to disengage the psychology of teams attitude (e.g. the me against you mentality). This way, I’ve placed myself in a net neutral position above the battle lines between the “For” and the “Against” camps so I can see what the real issues are, and not be blinded by my own shortsightedness.
Think of this approach like playing a game in the third person view rather that the first person view (e.g. Command & Conquer vs. Halo). It’s more fun to be slugging it out in the trenches, but you will probably make better strategy decisions having the bird’s eye view.
5 Comments
Dec 26, 20097:30 am
Self Censorship Leads to Delusion.
If you are not actively trying to prove yourself wrong, you should just assume you are already deluded. That goes for Finances, Religion, Politics… Everything.
[Reply]
Matt SF Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 8:51 am
Absolutely Kurt! Looking for what I don’t want to know is usually the second thing I go looking for. First, confirm that I actually know what I know, then spend the rest of the time trying to disprove it.
Then again, if everyone behaved that way, the basic business model of politically slanted news and information would go the way of the Dodo bird! Lots of money to be made on the fringes of society.
[Reply]
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7:54 am
Great stuff and very true.
The blindness happens because people often tie their personal identity to a group, cause, or an idea. The moment you stop drawing your identity from a group is the moment objective views are possible. It becomes quite easy to acquire information from all sides of an issue. You have no pony in the race, other than yourself. You will begin to actively seek information from all sides of a particular issue. You then get to serve as an objective observer, not rooting for one side or the other. Your focus must be selfish … you must identify what is best for you, and not be blinded by an identity. When you operate selfishly, you will want to operate only on facts … objective facts, because in the end it is the objective facts that will provide you the true and accurate information upon which to make a decision that is in your best interest.
[Reply]
Matt SF Reply:
December 26th, 2009 at 8:48 am
“The moment you stop drawing your identity from a group is the moment objective views are possible.”
That’s a great statement about the psychology of teams… many times the basic concept of competition won’t allow you to see anything the group doesn’t want to acknowledge.
[Reply]