As we are in the most fruitful period of humanity when It comes to information, with millions of articles, research and online encyclopedias at our disposal with just the pressing of a button, we quickly become dizzied by this incredible amount of things, where we don't know what to hold as true or fake, so, even If we like to think of ourselves as always rational, we fall victim to certain preconceptions proper to our beliefs when It comes to gathering data about a topic. One of this preconceptions, and probably the most common, is the Confirmation Bias. Let's talk about It:

What is a Confirmation Bias?

Simply put, a Confirmation Bias is the tendency to seek, interpret, and put in a more favorable light the information that confirms our preconceived beliefs and theories, without giving further chances to data that claims to prove the opposite. One example of this might be someone who thinks milk is bad for you only searching for articles that talk about all the damages that lactose causes to our system, without giving any more consideration to the opposite claim.

Dangers of Confirmation Bias

As something so one-sided this might prove detrimental to the individual, specially If he/she is in charge of a group of people and works in a more empirical workspace, where results directly depend on If one hypothesis is truth or not, causing harm to all the ones involved, whether physiologically or economically.

Not only this, though It can severely decrease, if not cut the way in which a person can learn, where being so rooted for one choice, the individual refuses to get any more info about a particular subject and gets him/her way behind trends and the overall movement of things.

How to get over Confirmation Bias:

As something noone likes to admit, Confirmation Bias is more or less present in all of us and It won't fade away any time soon. So the best, as with any bad habit, is to be open to the possibility that you might be wrong with whatever you think, and this is normal, as things are constantly changing and studies are constantly disproving old theories about how life works, though, this will only be the first step.

The next and more practical step, is looking not only for infomation that confirms what you believe, though also the opposite and just other conclusions, as uncomfortable as It might be. This will open yourself to new venues of knowledge, all kinds of perspectives and as you approach friendly debates, you can get to know where the other person comes from.

We hope that the information provided can be of use to you, providing the awareness of the existance of this behavior and some strategies on how to overcome It. Thanks for your support!