Confirmation Bias: Because Who Doesn’t Love Being Right?

Picture this: you’re working on a puzzle, and every piece feels like it slots perfectly into the picture you already decided on. You’re smug, you’re confident, you’ve cracked it. Except — you haven’t. You’ve just fallen for the oldest brain trick in the book: confirmation bias.

A Little History (Because Apparently We Never Learn)

Confirmation bias isn’t some modern quirk of the social media age. It’s been around since the 1600s. But in the 1960s, psychologist Peter Cathcart Wason finally slapped a label on it. He gave people a string of numbers and told them to figure out the pattern. Instead of testing all possibilities, most people stuck to guesses that proved what they already thought. Basically, they played themselves.

Why It’s a Problem

Now scale that up. Imagine a courtroom where everyone’s wearing those same blinders. Or science where researchers only publish results that back their pet theory. Spoiler: truth doesn’t stand a chance. Real-world example? The 2005 London bombings, where confirmation bias led to police shooting an innocent man. Or John Demjanjuk, accused of war crimes because people wanted the story to fit. This isn’t just a brain quirk — it can ruin lives.

But Wait — It Gets Worse (and Sometimes Better)

Like any bad habit, confirmation bias has its perks. It can make us feel confident, bond us with like-minded people, and speed up decisions. Think of it as that friend who insists they’re “just being devil’s advocate” — sometimes useful, mostly annoying, but not always wrong.

What To Do About It

The only way to fight confirmation bias is to admit you’re not as objective as you think. Try letting in perspectives that make you squirm. Test the idea that you might be wrong. It’s uncomfortable, but living in an echo chamber is worse.

Confirmation bias is basically your brain’s favorite con job: it convinces you that your first hunch is gospel truth, then keeps handing you puzzle pieces that “prove” it. Meanwhile, the real picture sits unfinished on the table, laughing at you.

So the question is: do you want to keep playing along with the lie, or are you ready to take the blinders off and see the whole damn puzzle?

References:

• Wason, P. C. (1960). On the failure to eliminate hypotheses in a conceptual task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 12(3), 129–140.
• Lidén, M. (2023). Confirmation bias in criminal cases. Oxford University Press.
• Peters, U. (2022). What is the function of confirmation bias? Erkenntnis, 87, 1351–1376.