Confirmation Bias and Why It Exists (I Think)

You know that friend or relative you have that seems to have a good head on their shoulders but you just can’t seem to get them to reason with you on that one particular issue? Chances are you’re dealing with what they call Confirmation Bias. Essentially, it’s a phenomenon that consists of a person having a particular bias for a point of view, and when that person is shown evidence that runs counter to that bias, they tend to continue believing their biased viewpoint. Not only that, but they also tend to increase their zealousness in their belief of it. It’s a pretty interesting (and frustrating) behavior that seems to afflict intelligent and dull people alike.

Herd mentality can be dangerous

My theory on why this happens is based on an evolutionary psychology perspective. Way back in caveman days, everyone lived in small extended family and tribal groups. Without the group, certain death awaited you out there in nature. Not only that, but even if you survived such an ordeal, your access to the gene pool ceased to exist, and therefore your genes died with you. This genetic death scenario would be the driving force in why we would evolve extreme fear mechanisms to avoid angering the group to such an extent that its members would eject us. In other words, we’re deathly afraid of offending our in-group, because in our subconscious, it means not only death, but also the death of our lineage. Rebellious individuals were weeded out in this way by the evolutionary process.

People are more afraid of offending their tribe (now Republicans, Democrats, media personalities, peers at work or school, their family members), than they are of physical risk. At least with the physical risk of death, your reward from a male perspective could be status, and therefore a higher likelihood to have reproductive access to females. And again, the risk of being ejected from the tribe means that whatever traits you have that drove you to behave in this way would die with you, because you would never again have access to the females of that tribe, nor any other for that matter. The same would still work from a female perspective too. Without access to the resources of the tribe, any children you might have would not survive to reproductive age, and those same traits would die with you as well. Conversely, traits that reinforce an in-group perspective, even in the face of contrary evidence, would certainly be selected for by the evolutionary process. Working together in groups is by-and-large what has kept us safe from other tribes and from nature, so anything that would compromise this would be selected out by evolutionary forces.

What does this mean for us as individuals?

It means that we must acknowledge that this is a flaw that we will inevitably succumb to from time to time. Because of the enormity of the gene pool in the modern world, we no longer have to actually worry about genetic death in reality because there will always be some in-group we can align ourselves with, regardless of how offensive our point of view might be to the masses. Our subconscious mind doesn’t know this however, and evolution hasn’t been functioning long enough in the environment that is modern civilization to have selected against such a trait to any great degree. For now we’re almost all stuck with it (I’m sure there are some rare exceptions), so it’s important to know about it so we can keep it in check.

As human beings, we have the capacity for reason like no other animal. But our reason is still built on top of the animal stimulus-response mechanism, and is therefore subservient to it unless we can hack the underlying code. Just brainstorming here, there are a few ways I have come up with to do so.

1. Contrarian Communities – If we set up micro-communities filled with contrarians, we can eliminate the instinctual affinity for the larger groups within our societies.
2. Self Knowledge – Self reflection under the guidance of mental health professionals can help us to know ourselves in ways that would otherwise be impossible. We can then hack into our minds from the inside out.
3. Humility – The knowledge that we are imperfect, and the discipline to question our judgment when our biases are being challenged, will be critical in overcoming confirmation bias.
4. Fear - We must prevent fear from getting the better of us. This goes hand in hand with the self knowledge part. We need to acknowledge when fear is driving our behavior, and then we must attempt to go against those urges when they prevent us from thinking rationally about a subject.

What do you think? Please discuss in the comments below if you have any suggested solutions for confirmation bias and the problems that come with it. Or if you want to poke holes in my amateurish theory on the subject, please do.

Image source: Pixabay