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How to handle confirmation bias in your thinking
Confirmation Bias is a limitation within our thinking process where we listen to and seek out information that agrees with what we already believe. Confirmation bias is a common phenomena within human perception and ultimately lies at the heart of our beliefs about the world and what’s true. In this program, we explore confirmation bias and some of the possible reasons behind why it is so common.
One theory put forth by Leon Festinger is Cognitive Dissonance Theory – the idea that humans have difficulty reconciling differing perspectives, values, and beliefs, and in an effort to avoid the dissonance, seek ways to either make sense of the differences or to discredit the information that doesn’t agree with our already held beliefs.
Another possible reason is found in the phenomenological perspective – the idea that all knowledge is experiential. This philosophical entrance shows that our experiences of the world are already interpretations based on our past traditions, experiences, values, beliefs and attitudes. And that one cannot separate the knower from the known – that the knower and the known are in some sense two sides to the same coin.
If both of these presuppositions are true – that we struggle to reconcile dissonance within our belief structure – our values, attitudes, and beliefs about the world – and that we are inseparable from our knowledge, that our worlds are the products of our experience and any knowledge about the world outside of our experience is impossible, then confirmation bias, functions as a natural result .
Enjoy the episode!!
Resources:
- Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises
- Phenomenology
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