Confirmation Bias: A tendency which influence your thought and decision in social life.
When discussing mutual reasoning in any kind of debate, we always learn new things or with whom we are sharing the argument, we get an idea about the nature of his personality. You have to be careful, there is a tendency for everyone to argue and debate, however, to give appropriate reasoning to prove your position as correct and you have to present the information-proof for the argument. Nobody can keep himself 'neutral' while doing this; Although very little, he has to resort to dishonesty or cheating. The work may be deliberately or unknowingly. Even though it is unknowingly, but it not very difficult to detect it.
image credit: pixabay, Author: geralt_CC0 Public Domain
Or think of another situation differently; Suppose you firmly believe in 'dictatorship' and think that dictatorships can bring prosperity to a state. Then you will see only a handful of points, such as quick decision-making ability, infrastructural improvements, military power enhancement, etc. But in this case, many bad aspects of the dictatorship, such as human rights violations, depriving people of constitutional rights, torturing, and suppressing dissent, many thousands of errors will avoid your eyes. By all means, you will try to establish your faith as 'good' and 'accurate to yourself. And to do this, you will deceive yourself with your own judgments.
This is a flawed tendency, it is a great obstacle to human thought and a long-term impediment to imparting a neutral opinion or decision-making ability to a person. This trend is known as 'Confirmation Bias'. And Today I want to explain about 'Confirmation Bias'.
What is Confirmation Bias?
The trend called 'confirmation bias' is a faulty trend in human thought. When a person believes in a particular doctrine or ideology, then an impulse worked inside him, to gain evidence of that dogma or belief. In this case, the evidence or patterns which go against his as doctrines or beliefs, whether it strong or clear, the person tries to avoid or reject them. And all the evidence or patterns that are favorable to his belief or doctrine, he tries to establish his beliefs or doctrines with them seriously, regardless of her weaknesses. This tendency is known as 'Confirmation Bias'.
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That is, whatever you want to see or what your mind wants to see, by seeing that you will get satisfied, you will see that. And by seeing that, your mind feels uncomfortable, you will want to avoid it or also you see but you pretend that you don't see it. And that's the 'confirmation bias'.
Here, which you believe, that you want to make sure more and more. Even, you can be surprised to hear that, there is no human in the world who can avoid 'Confirmation Bias' completely. If you know about 'Confirmation Bias', you can avoid it, there is no surety of it. Although very little, you have 'confirmation bias' in some cases, and if you look at it a little deeper you can find out it.
Why and how confirmation bias developed between people's mind.
We can identify the reasons why people are making conformity. However, it is difficult to determine how this thing gets entangled in the personality of a person. The innate characteristics of man are that according to what he knows or sees as much about the world around him, accordingly his beliefs or doctrines are formed. Again, the doctrine or belief that was formed in it affects the process of watching the world around it and knowing about the world. It's is a labyrinth that is extremely difficult to come out from it. Human's biological and psychological entities always want to avoid any kind of hard work as far as possible. So people do not want to break their old faith and build a new faith. Rather, it shows the tendency to protect that he has been holding up her believe for so long; It is relatively easy and secure to hold old ideas rather than forming new beliefs or ideas. However, when doing this, they show Confirmation Bias.
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Again, people do not like to be defeated, he doesn't want his idea to be wrong. It also leads people to confirmation bias. Confirmation Bias can be less or more into everyone, and normally it can not have a negative impact on a person's life when its level is low. Until childhood to adulthood, it is very difficult to say how Confirmation Bias is made in a person's life. However, It can be assumed, how curiosity is created in the mind of a child, how are her curiosities met, what kind of people live around him, what kind of people do they feel comfortable to adapt to. Depending on these factors, different levels of Confirmation Bias can be grown in their personality and thinking. If his family member or since his childhood he accustomed to imitate those types of people who are already affected with biased, then it is likely to be infected among him. Strongly Confirmation Bias affected people will try to find evidence for establishing his belief in almost all matters as true and correct, that evidence that goes against his own beliefs, he will ignore them and try to one-side analyze any common or completely irrelevant phenomena come to the favor of his own faith. Even in the case of remembering the previous retention, without fully considering the whole incident, he will partly think the whole incident as if that memory is reasonable with his current beliefs. It's obviously cheating on yourself.
For example, think, you have a friend and at present, he is a very influential person. At present, your relationship with him is very good and you get help from him or his ability for your different needs. But your relationship with him was quite bad in the past and most of your past experience with it bitter. But now your belief, that is, "That friend is your very close friend", to uphold it, you have to prove your deep sense of friendship, and to prove it, you have to bring out the good memories of its past. If your past memories go after remembers, in that case, your brain will also try to make a positive explanation of those bitter experiences, although the events in the past were not exactly the same.
The effect of Confirmation Bias in our lives
In our personal, family, social, economic and career lives Confirmation Bias has a far-reaching effect. When the first time someone sees you and makes a decision about you, that's mean the first time when he seeing you, in his mind which idea is created about you, that is very difficult to change that idea. Suppose you are actually an extrovert, and you want to familiar with the new person. In this situation, if you maintain your mood, calmly and talk with them a very little, if you have a little bit of shame exposed in your behavior. Then they will think of you as an 'introvert'. Later on, if you act like an extrovert in front of them, they will be surprised at it but they will don't wants to accept you as an extrovert.
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Again, suppose think your friend addicted to alcohol. Everyone knows it and warns him about this. But doctors sometimes use some of alcohol's components for some types of treatment. In this situation, if your friend shows such an example and says, "Look, alcohol is not bad; Rather it useful for our life! ", Then it is understandable that he is also suffering from cannabis, as well as Confirmation Bias. Because, if he tried to know completely, he would have probably learned that he is taking straightforward alcohol and using it for treatment is a different matter and how harmful it's to use, as addiction content. Snake poison is used for the preparation of drugs, so it is not an intelligent thing to go for taking a snake bite, it may be impossible to understand him.
Some people clearly show strongly Confirmation Bias to win the argument. Most people can not respect them from the heart, and such people are generally known as 'cramped' people in society. It is very harmful to a person's personality. Where you are not only losing the respect of people because of conformity but rather cheating yourself. Due to intense Confirmation Bias, you are probably knowingly grasping your wrong idea, noticing the wrong aspects of it. And this misconception is probably defining you as a whole.
Confirmation Bias plays the most important role in the case of superstition. You may believe that it is not good if someone sneezes out of his house. Now, if someone has sneezed in front of you during the first six days of the week when you leave the house to go to the office and there are no accidents in these six days, then you do not remember this six days. But on the seventh day if someone sneezes in front of you when you leave the house to go out for some reason, and if there are any minor accidents on that day, then you remember it very seriously and may even you tell the story to people after a few years. In this way, prejudice is establishing confession in your thinking and it is increasing your belief in superstition.
image credit: pixabay_ Author: geralt_ CC0 Public Domain
If you have a doubt in your mind about family, relatives or friends, then you will take negative behavior in most cases for Confirmation Bias purposes; Even general or positive behavior. In this way, your relationship will definitely get worse. Investors often make the wrong decisions because of these Confirmation Bias. They might invest in new business. In this case, if they have a positive idea about this business in the past, then whatever surveys, chances, risks and other details they show, they just give priority to the good prospects and in the end, they want to invest. Because it is said that the former beliefs.
The worst examples of confirmation bias are probably different statistical surveys. For a mathematical collection of any subject, a statistical process can be a very reliable matter. However, this statistic can be used in many ways. Many people misuse statistics even for some purpose to prove it. For example, when the survey participants are asked, "Are you satisfied with that organization, the organization you are employing in?", Then they will probably give positive answers. But if the question is made, "Are you dissatisfied with the organization?". So the negative answer is more likely to increase. That is, you can influence the results of the survey according to the type of question here.
Again, think that there are 1,000 people living in a region, and about 800 of them are not very good economic status. But during the survey, it is not possible to go to 1,000 people, so you will collect information from some people. Now if you collect information from only 10 people, and 8 out of 10 people are economically capable, then your survey results will be: "The survey found that 80 percent of the population in this region is better"; Although the real picture is exactly the opposite. This type of work is sometimes deliberately done with a special purpose. Again, without giving detailed information about the statistics, the actual fact is hidden even with partial information. There are many other ways to use statistics one-sided. These are the confirmation bias.
Confirmation Bias is also taken seriously in the scientific process. Researchers may occasionally be victims of such type of pain while researching any scientific subject to reach a certain conclusion. Prior to starting the study, he made a draft idea in mind with his own observation and knowledge. That idea can influence the process and results of their research; He can try to prove his basic idea anyway. Therefore, after the process and results of any scientific research have been published, it needs to be examined by the same other researchers as neutral as possible. Again, hypnosis or pseudoscience is seen to be the most widely used of the confirmation; Attempts to establish truth as scientific truth by presenting the unilateral argument and evidence are also wrong or uncertain.
Again the opposite image is also seen. There are many people, who unilaterally oppose any scientific theory, they bring contradictions and defects in the theory repeatedly. But by the scientific theory that many things are clearly explained, they are very cunningly avoided or forced to deny it. Because that theory might be incompatible with their beliefs or beliefs.
How to get rid of Confirmation Bias
Since Confirmation Bias leads us to unilateral thought, it does not allow us to acquire accurate knowledge or to make a decision in a neutral manner. If you have more than the Confirmation Bias speed, then it will show up with some signs-
You only associate with certain people of a specific thought. There is a difference in opinion with you that you will not be seen to be very close to the people.
You want to protect that concept that you are accustomed to, and you do it very aggressively. You think, your idea cannot be proved wrong.
Your idea involves passion and 'personal experience'.
You always try to argue with your beliefs or beliefs, but do not argue against it, and do not even need to look at it when you get it.
In most cases, if someone asks you a questionable question, you ask him or her without asking a reasonable answer to that question, or try to bring the subject of discussion into a favorable topic.
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Although a person knows about the confirmation bias and the way how to escape from it, there is no guarantee that he can avoid it completely. In fact, there is less bias between our thoughts. However, it can be tried to reduce or avoid:
Try to know everything in the 'real sense'. Do not look for evidence that what you know about yourself, and only go for it. If you get good reasoning and evidence against your knowledge or idea, keep in mind the need to reconstruct your idea or change it.
Respect the opinions of others. Consider and evaluate those opinions seriously. Do not throw away others like that.
Do not reach conclusions by hearing only a few words or opinions on a matter; Check out the evaluation and evaluation of as many people as possible.
If you want to verify any idea or belief, try to prove it wrong. You can learn and learn a lot by doing this. However, this work should be done in a neutral position; Trying to fool yourself, you will not be able to. Put away emotions while verifying a subject. Verify by argument, not by emotion.
Do not try to follow the shortcut or learn something very briefly. Please try to know briefly with some time.
Discuss your ideas with anyone who can argue with your idea by applying the argument. Try to understand his arguments or critiques sincerely.
If you have a disagreement with someone about a topic, evaluate your opinion by imagining yourself in his position. Try to analyze your ideas from many perspectives.
Interact with people of a different opinion or different thoughts at times, rather than always be friends with people who are related to your thoughts, ideologies or beliefs.
Think deeply about how a certain belief or idea was created or developed within you. If you form a wrong idea, you can easily remove it.
To overcome confirmation bias, a big success in making the right decision. The path that our innate nature wants us to do, is not always right. Confirmation Bias is a negative trend. Think, how strong is the effect of the confirmation bias in your thoughts?
Image sources AND LICENCES:
All the images which I used in this post, they are free for commercial use and royalty free. Original images links also provided under them.
If You Want To Further Reading About This Article Don't Forget To Checkout These REFERENCES:
Confirmation Bias
We interpret facts to confirm our beliefs
Confirmation Bias: Flaws in Reasoning and Arguments
Confirmation Bias, Stop Wishful Thinking
Breaking The Cycle of Confirmation Bias
Avoiding Psychological Bias
in Decision Making
How to Make Objective Decisions
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