Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is a habit of mind: we look for, favor, and remember what fits what we already believe, and we skip or explain away what does not.

It works like a pair of selective sunglasses. The view you already hold looks bright, and the evidence against it gets filtered out.

Nobody is immune, and intelligence does not protect you. Clever people are often better at building reasons for what they already think.

The fix is a routine, not willpower. Decide in advance what would count against your belief, write down every case rather than the memorable ones, and ask someone who disagrees what they would expect to see.

Mercury and the laptop

The belief: “When Mercury is in retrograde (a few weeks when the planet seems to move backward), technology breaks down.”

Confirmation bias at work: you remember every laptop crash or dropped call during retrograde weeks and say, “See, it’s happening again.” You forget the glitches in the rest of the year, and the retrograde days when your tech worked fine.

Try this today Pick a belief and write down one case against it before you look for cases that agree.