Confirmation bias Why you make terrible life choices

Confirmation bias Why you make terrible life choicesConfirmation bias Why you make terrible life choicesYou walk into your first joga class. Youre a little insecure about your weight and how your yoga clothes cling to your body revealing every flaw. Youre nervous about making a fool of yourself.Your eyes instantly zoom onto the fit model-esque people chatting in the corner. As you walk past them, your ears pick up the tinkle of laughter.My god, are they laughing at me?You pick a spot in the back of the classroom where no one can landsee you. The teacher asks everyone to get into crouching fish pose.Do people know this pose?You flail around on your mat and fall over in a bigthump.You look up to make sure no one saw you.Crap. The guy next to you is hiding a smirk.I KNEW IT. Everyone is laughing at me.You avert your gaze after class, run out of there and vow to never do yoga again.Confirmation bias strikesagainIn the yoga class, you looked for instances that confirmed your insecurities - the models who were laughing at you, the guy who smirked when you fell.You ignored other instances that didnt prove your insecurities - basically everyone else in class who barely took notice of you.Confirmation bias is the human tendency to seek, interpret and remember information that confirms your own pre-existing beliefs.It is insidious. It affects every choice you make. Every. Single. Day. The things you choose to buy, your health, who you choose to marry, your career, your emotions, and your finances. It all happens in the background without you noticing.How does confirmation biaswork?Confirmation bias affects you in 3 ways1. How you seek informationConfirmation bias affects how you look at the world around you.When youre alone at home feeling lousy, you immediately jump onto Facebook or Instagram. You look at pictures of people traveling, parteying, getting married and think everyone I know is living a great life. You say to yourself, I am such a lonely loser.You sit at h ome and feel crappy - all becauseyou chose to seek information that confirms your crummy feelings.You knew looking at those photos would make you feel worse but you sought them anyway.2. How you interpret the information in front ofyouConfirmation bias also affects how you process what is otherwise neutral information - and it tends to favor your beliefs.When you are falling in love, all you see in your partner is a beautiful, perfect Adonis. You dont notice a single flaw. When that relationship sours, all of a sudden, all you see are flaws - their coffee breath, their penchant for droning endlessly about a topic you dont care about, the hairs they leave in the sink.You are dating the exact same person,but you perceive the things they do differently based on how you feel.3. How you rememberthingsEven your memories are affected by confirmation bias. You interpret and possibly even change memories and facts in your head based on your beliefs.In aclassic experiment, Princeton and Da rtmouth students were shown a game between the two schools. At the end, Princeton students remembered more fouls committed by Dartmouth, and Dartmouth students remembered more fouls committed by Princeton.Both groups of students fundamentally believed their school was better. So they tended to remember and recall more instances that showed their school in a good light and the opposing school in a bad light.Why am I likethis?You seek evidence that confirms your beliefs because being wrong sucks. Being wrong means youre not as smart as you thought. So you end up seeking information thatconfirms what you already know.In afamous experiment, when participants were presented with evidence counter to their political beliefs, areas of their brain associated with physical pain became more active - its as if being wrongphysically hurts.Its easy to accept opposing views when it concerns things you dont care about. But you also have deep seated beliefs that form a core part of your identity (e .g. that youre a kind person, that your political views are correct). Evidence that runs counter to these beliefs often causes cognitive dissonance - a feeling of immense stress and anxiety.Cognitive dissonancetriggers a fight or flight response- you either dig in your heels and double down on your existing beliefs (fight) or get away from the opposing fact (flight).Your brains primary goal is self-protectionThis applies to both your physical and psychological self. When opposing facts challenge your identity, your brain perceives the psychological threat and protects you as if it was an actual physical threat.There is just too much information toprocessIt takestremendous effortto hold opposing hypotheses and try to evaluate evidence for and against each one.So your brain optimizes for the fastest shortcut to a solution. Its too much work to evaluate contradictory information and figure out whats right. Its easier to look for two to three things to stab und sttze your current view point.So what can I do aboutit?1.Approach life with curiosity not convictionWhen you walk into every interaction trying to prove yourself right, youre going to succumb to confirmation bias.Researchersstudied two groups of children in school. The first group avoided challenging problems because it came with a high risk of being wrong. The other actively sought them out for the learning opportunity, even though they might be wrong. The second group consistently outperformed the first.Focus less on being right and more on experiencing life with curiosity and wonder. When youre willing to be wrong, you open yourself up to new insights.When youre willing to be wrong, you open yourself up to new insights.CLICK TO TWEET2. Seek and understand disagreementUnderstanding various viewpoints can help you refine your perspective. According to researchers, you can actually change your deep-seated beliefs. The trick? Surround yourselfwith a variety of opposing viewpoints.Say youre buying a house, a nd you love one in particular. Ask a friend to play devils advocate and propose reasons for not buying this house. That way you can make sure youre seeing more than just your viewpoint, and make a rational decision.3. Think aboutthinkingTo fight back against cognitive biases, you need to evaluate your instinctive reactions.The next time you run across facts that completely confirm your worldview, stop. Think about the assumptions youre making and look for ways to prove yourself wrong.Say youre a coffee lover - you need your morning cuppa to properly function. When youre browsing your Facebook feed, articles touting the benefits of coffee will instantly grab your attention.Its easy to read these articles and go Aha, that confirms all of my life choices. The next time you catch yourself doing that, try to actively search for information that contradicts what you believe in.ConclusionConfirmation bias is an unavoidable part of how you make decisions. Its an evolutionary trait that col ors how you view the world, and its not something you can always overcome.But when youre making big decisions - decisions about your health, finances, love life - you want to mitigate its effects the best you can. Learning and understanding how confirmation bias works gives you the opportunity to compensate for its downsides and make more rational decisions.So the next time you are going from crouching fish pose to flying chihuahua, dont worry, no ones looking at you.This column, which first appeared at Nir and Far, is co-authored with and illustrated byLakshmi Mani, a product designer working in San Francisco.Nir Eyal is the author ofHooked How to Build Habit-Forming Products.For more insights on using psychology to change customer behavior, join his free newsletter and receive a free workbook atwww.nirandfar.com.