Written: May 5, 2021 | Released: June 18, 2021
People often talk about what a problem “confirmation bias” is. But we rarely discuss what causes so many of us to search for information in a biased way.
Let’s explore some of the forces:
1. Echo chambers: our routine sources of information tend to support our worldview. Much of this is due to social ties (we tend to talk to people who are similar to us in age, geography, religion, etc.) We also trust news sources more if they share our basic ideology/assumptions. The authorities we look to will be the ones that agree with us on most of our fundamental assumptions (even if some of these assumptions could turn out to be wrong).
2. Soldier Mindset: as Julia Galef explains in her wonderful new book (the Scout Mindset), we are often not even TRYING to figure out the truth. We’re just trying to beat the other side or prove a point. In these cases, of course we have a biased search process.
3. Lack of doubt: when we’re really confident our basic premises are correct, we don’t see the need for a nuanced information search process. We’re going to go to whatever sources are convenient for filling in minor details, even if our beliefs have major unquestioned assumptions.
4. Advocacy: others are actively trying to get us to believe certain falsehoods. They do so through ads, websites, news, and other channels. For the most part, they themselves believe these falsehoods (promoting “the truth” as they see it), but occasionally it’s pure manipulation.
5. Fear of being wrong: it hurts to be wrong, especially if we’ve made the error publicly, have our identity tied up in the belief, or it challenges our understanding of the world or who to trust. We sometimes avoid finding out we are wrong the way we avoid touching a hot stove.
We don’t always seek out information in a biased way. For instance, when looking up driving directions or trying to figure out what paint to use to prevent water damage, we want the right answer, don’t have political biases, and usually have appropriate self-doubt and skepticism.
But we are liable to have a biased search for the truth when we are incentivized to have particular beliefs, such as when our social world supports just one perspective, when we’re trying to prove the other side wrong, when we have no doubt that we are right, when powerful others are devoting a lot of effort to persuade us, or when we’re too afraid of being wrong.
For more about this topic, you may want to check out my recent podcast episode with Julia Galef.
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