260. Confirmation Bias - I Knew It! (Refreshed Episode)

Welcome to episode 260 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is all about confirmation bias.

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You are listening to the Brainy Business podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone.

My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today's episode is all about confirmation bias. My oh my, what an important topic when it comes to applying behavioral science into life and work. You have likely heard the term confirmation bias before. Whether you heard this episode when it.

First aired back in May of 2020.

Or not, as this is one of those concepts that gets thrown around quite a bit. It's easy to understand on the surface, but the depth of its importance and impact isn't always realized. Because our brains function largely on predictability and a love of the status quo, confirmation bias is part of our lives and work constantly. I mean, did you know that whether or not you believe someone is difficult or easy to work with can determine whether or not they're easy or difficult to work with? Kids performance in school has been found to be tied to insights the teacher was given about them before they started more than their academic ability. So those they were told were stars versus problems. It had an impact on how they performed at the end of the year more than their academic ability. Really amazing stuff.

And your view of your team or.

A project or a process can all be a filter that your confirmation bias either uses for good or to keep you stuck. Now, in case you're wondering why I chose to refresh this episode today, it's because of the interview coming up on Friday with Dr. Wendy Smith about her book Both and thinking which will change your life. It is so good and fantastic. Definitely make sure you are subscribed to the Brainy Business podcast so you don't miss this one. Because of that conversation, it felt like the biggest, best thing we could talk about today to set the stage is confirmation bias. So as you listen today, think about what your biases are and where you have an either or mindset. It's much more often than you think. Our world is not one of binary choices no matter how much our brains like to make us think that there are many opportunities in the both and space that businesses can benefit from embracing and updating your filters to be set up for them is going to make some such a difference. So keep that in mind as you listen today. Before we jump into the episode, I want to remind you that your free Confirmation Bias worksheet and links to past episodes and books and articles are all waiting for you in the show Notes for this episode, which are found within the app you're listening to and at the brainy business.com 260 all right, let's talk about confirmation bias.

In its most basic form, confirmation bias comes down to our brain's desire to be correct and the subconscious filter deciding what gets through and stored and what gets ignored. Because the subconscious is working from established, proven rules to make these choices, it's looking for stuff that fits those existing rules. Anything that doesn't. Well, more often than you realize, those just get put on the proverbial shelf, never to be seen or thought of again. Remember, the subconscious brain can do 11 million bits of information per second. It's processing tons of data all the time, and the conscious brain can only do 40 bits. So that's a huge amount that's having to be determined if it fits the mold or or is unnecessary. I know I've said these numbers on the show before, but it's important to mention them again here. That means for every one thing that makes it through to the conscious brain, 275,000 others were processed by the subconscious and sorted based on how well they fit the current mold and outlook. While the brain can look and find things that disagree with its perspective, the that isn't the natural tendency. The easiest thing to do. The most satisfying thing is to look for items that confirm what you believe, that makes you feel safe. But of course, the things that fit your bias don't necessarily confirm what others believe. And that's where we have conflict. This is why two people can witness the same event and have completely different interpretations of what happened. You are seeking out different information and retaining different pieces to suit your brain brain's needs. Some of these are ingrained in us genetically over years and years, but many of them are built over our own singular lifetimes. Someone who grew up in a very religious household will have different impacts of confirmation bias than someone who did not. Those who grew up with wealth and privilege will see things differently than those who grew up poor. The political affiliation of a household impacts this as well. Stereotypes do go hand in hand with confirmation bias, and many of these are taught to us intentionally or not, when we are very young. All this means you could see the exact same event as someone else standing right next to them and have a completely different interpretation based on your existing beliefs and confirmation bias. In many ways, you actually watch the same thing and believe two different things happened. The question of course is are either of you wrong, is either right, or did you just interpret the information differently based on your biased filters? And can you disagree and still both be correct? More often than not, the answer is yes. And here's a super basic example. Can you remember a time you watched sports with friends? It could be football, basketball, soccer, it doesn't really matter. If you've ever watched a game with people who were rooting for the other team, you may have witnessed a call made by the referee where you had a completely different opinion of what happened than those fans supporting the other side, whether it was on the line or not, or if someone pushed or not, or deserved to be kicked out of the game or anything else. You believe with every fiber of your being that you and your team are in the right and those other people are nuts. And they of course feel exactly the same way, but in reverse. As you know by now, this is because of confirmation bias, which is especially ramped up and more prevalent in circumstances that are tied with emotions, which include watching your favorite team in an important game. The four main ways you will see confirmation bias 1 not seeking out objective facts 2 interpreting information to support your existing belief, 3 only remembering details that upheld your belief and 4 ignoring information that challenges your belief. Here are some examples with an explanation about how these four items factor in.

First, let's talk about sugar.

Let's say you have a six year old whom you send to a birthday party where they eat lots of candy, cake and ice cream. You are ramping up for the sugar high. Maybe you and the other parents are lamenting about the afternoon you have ahead of you when those little kids go a little crazy hopped up on all that sugar. You know that sugar impacts the behavior of people, especially kids. And so you prepare for for what's coming. But does sugar actually cause kids to be hyperactive? You may have guessed it by now, but that is a myth. Kids behavior does not get more hyperactive when they have sugar. But do you know whose behavior does change?

That's right.

Their parents. The parents who did not seek out accurate information and accepted what they believed to be true or are looking for and expecting hyperactivity in their kids when they believe they had sugar. And these tests were done when parents were told their kids had sugar, but they really didn't. And in fact they see them being more crazy than usual even though the kids are acting as they always do. The brain's confirmation bias is looking for examples of crazy rowdy behavior and and it finds them, which reinforces the belief. And the brain casually forgets all the times the kids were crazy when they didn't have sugar. And the bias lives on. For our next example, let's say you believe that Mercury being in retrograde impacts behavior and that things go a bit nuts whenever that three week period is upon us. If you believe Mercury retrograde is a thing that impacts life on Earth, the search terms you use to look up information about it could be different and biased. Perhaps you search for why do things go crazy when Mercury is in retrograde? Or how to avoid Mercury retrograde problems while someone who doesn't believe it would search for why Mercury retrograde is not real or something like that. So you each search out articles or have conversations with others who support your opinions. Once you get that result, whatever it happens to be, you will read and remember the articles and conversations that support what you believed to begin with. And studies have shown that seeing facts from an opposing side that contradict what you believed going in actually have the opposite effect of what they should and can make people double down on their previous belief. This that means, to use a crazy example, if you believe the sky is green and then seek out information and see five articles that say it's blue and one that says it's green and everything else is fake news, you will now believe even more than before that the sky is green and aggressively argue for its truthfulness and how everyone else is just a sheep who believes in propaganda. Back to the Mercury retrograde example. So you're gonna seek out information that supports your belief and be more to believe, remember and share those items that support your belief. And in the world of social media, it's easier than ever to filter the information you see and share, which can make everyone further biased. Then you're also likely to attribute things to the belief that are not necessarily true. Say if your phone stops working properly or you run into an old flame, you or one of your friends may say Mercury must be in retrograde. You may not even look it up to confirm, but you believe it to be true. It fits with your expectation and makes that belief a little bit stronger than it was previously. Let's say you did look it up and Mercury was in retrograde. That would really bolster your beliefs, right? You would say, I knew it. This is definitely a real thing. You are then on the lookout for more crazy things to be happening over the next 10 days or two weeks or however long is left in case you're interested, the last retrograde ended on March 10, just before most of the world shut down for coronavirus. And the next one is coming up June 18 to July 12. So if something happened on June 25, you might say, I knew it. And then be on the lookout for crazy things going on. And every time your phone didn't work or an email got messed up, you would be more likely to notice it and it would reinforce your belief in Mercury retrograde because of confirmation bias. Now, for the opposing side, let's say something crazy happened and you said Mercury must be in retrograde. And then you checked your phone and it was June 10, eight days before retrograde is scheduled to start. What do you think your brain would say then? Would it question everything? Think, hmm, maybe Mercury in retrograde isn't really a thing. Obviously stuff can get messed up at any time, so I will not believe that anymore. Or would it say something like, well, it's a good thing this didn't happen next week. It could have been so much worse when Mercury is in retrograde and. Or you might brush it off and conveniently forget you tried to look it up and still believe in the power of Mercury being in retrograde. Retrograde. You can see how someone who believes in retrograde impacting life on Earth will be constantly reinforcing that belief, even when they don't realize it. They could absolutely believe they're being impartial, but someone else could look at the exact same items and not attribute it to retrograde. This reinforcing tendency is because of illusory correlation, which is when we overestimate the relationship between two items to reinforce our biases even when little or no relationship exists. Another example of that would be if you believed in ESP and said every time you think about your mom, she calls you on the phone and believe there's a connection between those items. Believing that you thinking about your mom somehow makes it so the universe has it, so she calls you, or you can tell that the phone call is coming and that's why you think about her right before it rings. You tend to forget about all the times your mom called when you weren't thinking about her, and all the times you thought about your mom and she didn't call, which likely happened much more often than the times the two events happen together. And if you talk to your mom every Thursday evening, you may start thinking about her more as it gets closer to Thursday and during that day, because your brain is trained to have things to talk to her about and it's been a while, so this conditioning is making you more likely to think about her and she's more likely to call and it feels like one is causing the other. I thought about mom and she called when the two events are not actually related in that way. Confirmation bias has also been shown to impact doctors who believe something is wrong with a patient. Studies show that the doctor will unintentionally ask leading questions that confirm what they believe the illness to be, putting a lot of weight on what supports that opinion and ignoring the things that don't support the diagnosis they think it's going to be going in. So think about what this means for you in business and communication in general. We humans are pretty bad listeners by nature because our brains are processing so much information at any given time. Many of us are spending the time someone else is talking thinking about what we are going to say next. And no judgment from me. We've all done it. So let's say you are a consultant talking to a potential client. Or maybe you're listening to one of your employees talk about a project, or you're listening to your boss explain a project or a whole host of other scenarios. When that person is talking, your brain may be thinking about how you're going to respond and looking for clues that align with whatever recommendation or story or thought process you believe to be true. Using the consultant on a call with a potential client, let's say you believe they should get package A before you even get onto the phone with them. Everything they say, you're going to be listening for cues that support package A as the best fit. You may ask questions that help validate that package A is the best fit and conveniently forget the responses that would actually show package B is a better choice. If you aren't careful, you could recommend something you believe to be best before they even started talking that doesn't actually meet their needs, which makes it less likely that they're going to buy, and if they do buy, less likely that they're going to be happy with what they get. For many people in business, if you aren't confident in your offers or pricing, say if you just increased your rates, you may end up recommending something smaller than they would actually want or need because it feels better for you in the moment, it's less scary and you're looking for things they say or do that support their inability to pay full price, even though, again, it isn't necessarily true. Here's a tip from the way I approach my discovery calls. I do what I can to start the conversation without an idea of what they are going to want or need. I know what my packages are, of course, and how to talk about them if they feel like a fit. But I'm not going into that call assuming someone can or can't afford one thing or the other. And the first question I ask is usually something along the lines of what would be your dream scenario? Or if we were to work together, what would be the ideal outcome? Or even one what led you to decide to reach out to me for this project? And then I listen while they're talking and try not to jump to conclusions about what they should get. I may ask something like do you like to get tips and then do work yourself, or would you prefer to have someone do the work for you? This answer can help determine the type of recommendation I would make, but again, it's important to not start the conversation with a predetermined recommendation before they've had a chance to tell you about their situation. If there's only one way to work with you or one package first you should listen to episodes 11 and 12 on anchoring and Relativity. Most everyone should have at least two options, but not too many. But if it is that simple and you don't need to talk to everyone and have discovery calls, it would be in your best interest to work on the website copy to make it easy for people to buy and determine if this is is a fit without talking to you, because you may be making it more difficult than it has to be and the confirmation bias is likely a culprit of that. For example, if you think people can't buy what I'm selling right from the website because they don't, they always choose to call me and that's the only way they buy. But you haven't actually done the work to set up your website to make it clear how they can buy and select if you are the right fit for them and everything pushes them toward calling you, you can see that you're setting up the business in a way that confirms what you believe, not what is actually true. Because people buy things online all the time. Here's an example from when I worked at the credit union. I remember being in a meeting where we were talking about opt in rates for overdraft protection. We were looking at the numbers by branch which included the online platform for the first time. I don't remember the exact percentages, but we were looking at this because across the board the opt in rates were really low and when we saw it divided out by branch we were able to see that the in person experience across the branches was having really, really bad conversions. Let's say it was 25% of people choosing to get overdraft protection. Everyone in the branch who was doing that work would say it was because people didn't want it, that it was a tough sell, that they gave them both options, but people wanted to wait and see. So in looking at the breakdown by branch, I noticed that the percentages for those who open their accounts online instead of going into a branch were significantly higher. So where the opt in was 25% when speaking to a person, it was something crazy like 75 or 80% that were choosing to opt in to overdraft protection when they were online and didn't didn't talk to anybody. This made it abundantly clear that there was some sort of confirmation bias problem in the branch. If the person having the conversation believes the other person wouldn't want it, they're presenting it in a way that supports and reinforces that belief. The staff was actually inadvertently talking people out of something they chose to get, or when they went through the process alone online, an option that was much more profitable for the financial institution that they worked for. When I showed the staff that information and made recommendations for how to talk about overdraft protection in a slightly different frame, conversions went way up. If you ever feel the need to over explain things in business, especially in the selling process, do a gut check to see if confirmation bias is at the root of that problem. When you believe they can't afford it or won't want it, or something isn't worth it, your brain will do what it can to find evidence to support that information. On the flip side, if you can convince your brain that it is worth it and that the price is reasonable or better yet, a great deal, they will be more likely to hear it that way. People who can sell ice in the Arctic believe in their ability to sell anything and are seeking out information that supports that belief. Those who think they're terrible at selling and people will see right through them will be seeing information that confirms that belief. That old cliche of whether you think you can or you think you can't, you're right, which likely makes you roll your eyes when you hear it is accurate because of confirmation bias. And hopefully hearing it in this context will make you believe it. If you haven't been open to the concept in the past, this is a great chance to overcome some confirmation bias about whether that belief is true or not. Confirmation bias doesn't have to be a bad thing and it can very much work to your advantage in life and business. There are after all two sides to this coin. The first one is to look at where you may be biased in a way you don't want to be and try to be more open minded. Ask more open ended questions if you have an immediate reaction to something that is in the I knew it or nah, I'm sure that's a fluke. Those are likely examples of confirmation bias at play and if the item at hand is an important one, it could be worth exploring your ability to be more open minded. As with every tip I give on the show, your conscious has limited capacity and you can't do everything. So don't waste the effort on little unimportant beliefs you could use them to practice on, but know you will still be impacted by the bias across your life. So put the effort in where it really counts, like the things that make you money in your business or those that impact your overall happiness. The flip side of the confirmation bias coin is knowing that your brain naturally does these four things and so if you are selective about your goals and what you want to change in your life, you can see set up your brain's natural tendencies to align with those goals. As a reminder, the four things your brain will do are 1 not seek out objective facts, 2 interpret information to support your existing belief, 3 only remember details that uphold that belief and 4 ignore information that challenges your belief. If you want to set up a new belief and only pick one at a time until it becomes a habit, then you can eventually reinforce it until you naturally confirm it all the time and it becomes this lovely virtuous cycle. I'm going to use a non business example for this one and use something from my own life where I have done this to show how effectively it can work. When I was a kid and into much of my early adulthood, I really hated running. I would often say I'm not a runner or I'm too slow or I don't have the endurance for that. And whenever there were opportunities to run I would find evidence that supported that. It was the easy thing to say and accept. I got tired when I first started running obviously, but I would quickly say I'm not good at it and that I needed to walk and that was a sign of my overall inability to run, something that would never change. But eventually I changed that confirming bias and I pushed past that belief and started to think of myself as a runner. At that time I had a really hard time running more than a 5k or 3 miles without stopping. I would get fatigued and need to walk and it was incredibly frustrating and it validated my not a runner mindset. Then a friend told me about the 10:1 running method where you make the choice in advance to run for 10 minutes and then walk for one minute to catch your breath and reduce heart rate and then start running again for another 10 minutes. She explained that even some marathoners run this way and making the choice in advance helped it feel like your decision and not because you weren't good enough to keep running. This method allowed me to get up to nine miles in one go before my accident, and that's another time where confirmation bias can come in People who have been injured will often see themselves as a victim, especially while they're dealing with all the legal stuff. I remember one of my doctors or maybe an attorney explaining how many people have a big improvement when their cases are settled because they're able to get out of that victim mindset. And this is confirmation bias in action. When you've been injured and you're having to deal with legal stuff, you're constantly reminded of the accident and asked questions about how you feel and what level of pain still exists, and reminded of the bad things that happened. You look for things that support the bad even when you don't want to. You're a victim and so much of your daily life is confirming that, constantly filling out forms and having appointments. It's exhausting. This same tactic can be used around anything liking how you look in your video calls. I do have a whole episode on that, which is linked in the show notes by the way. Or increasing your prices or pitching yourself to the media or starting a business or whatever you want to be successful at. You can change the belief that has been holding you back if you're willing to put in a little effort. If you haven't yet checked out the master your mindset free mini course, there is a link for you in the show notes. It helps you narrow down your goals. You only get a total of three, and then set up affirmations, which is a fancy word for positive statements, and visualization tools to help support that new belief. That is all necessary to help you change your mindset. And if you think it doesn't work, maybe you've tried visualization in the past and it didn't stick, consider that this might be your confirmation bias talking. This tactic does work and has for so many people around the world, myself included. Athletes, actors, really successful business people. They all use visualization techniques and affirmations to help them reach their goals. But they only work if you believe in them. And as you probably guessed, confirmation bias is one big reason. So if you aren't the type of person who has believed in this sort of thing in the past, but you do have something you want to change, this is a great first step. Check out the Master your mindset mini course again. It's free and linked for you in the show notes as well.

So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about confirmation bias today? For me, as I said at the beginning of the episode, confirmation bias is something I talk and think about constantly, especially when working with teams on change management, which is why this concept has a significant presence in my book. What your employees need and can't tell you we can't fully get away from confirmation bias. This is just how our brains filter information. So instead of trying to do that, which is setting yourself up to fail, you can leverage it and make it so it works for you. Forget about what you have believed in the past, work to train your brain to adjust its filter and you'll be amazed at how things can start to change. Imagine there's someone on your team you believe is difficult. They're hard to work with and so as you heard in the episode, that's impacting the way you approach meetings and.

Emails and everything with them.

So you need to change you before trying to change them. Start by thinking about what you want to see in the future and ask some new questions. What can they bring to the team? What's their value? What are they passionate about? Who does get along with them?

Why?

Now you have some baselines to help shake up your perspective as you go.

Into a new meeting with them.

Depending on how distant the relationship has gotten over time, you might want to get a little vulnerable. I'm sharing my episode on Vulnerability loops in the comments and share how you realize that you may not have been as open to others opinions and feedback in the past as you should be and that's something you want to work on. You can then ask something like are you open to helping me grow and do better in this space? This can help them to commit to being part of the solution IKEA effect and shows that it's about you making a change, which will also trigger some reciprocity and help them to feel more comfortable in supporting you, but in a.

Way that they may be more likely.

To being open to expanding their their ways a little bit too. It kind of opens that door maybe.

A teeny tiny crack, but that being.

Said, you can't force them to commit.

To anything in this meeting and you.

Want to go into it truly thinking about how you can change instead of only using this as a tactic to change them. If you're not open and vulnerable, they'll.

Be able to sense it. They won't be either.

Have the mindset that you're focusing on you and find how you can be happy with the progress. Even if this person doesn't change right away, we like to think we can get to a quick solution.

I tried to be nice once and it didn't work.

It's not worth the effort. Well, remember that you may have a lot of stuff that doesn't support this new direction that's been piling up and is working against you now. This person may be hesitant to open up to you until you prove it a little bit, and that's understandable. This is part of why asking them for their support is such a great tactic. It helps them to know that you're making an effort. It can prime them to look inward.

And it makes it more likely that.

They'Ll give you some grace if you do slip up once or twice. But you need to be really committed to that shift. Have that first meeting with nothing but interest, curiosity, thoughtful questions, and a willingness to listen. Ask them about their story, what they care about, what gets them excited, what they studied in college, or what they wanted to do before that. Try and find a real human connection point that can help you to get away from just seeing them as that difficult team member. You want to expand your mutual circles of empathy and find places where you can connect so they're on Team Us.

Instead of team them.

It will take a little work and dedication, but it's so, so worth it. Trust me, it makes everything easier. I'm linking to the episodes on Unity and the Power of Us in the Show Notes as well as many others as they help to dig deeper on these concepts.

You'll also find those on the Focusing.

Illusion and my interview with Dolly Chug, whose fantastic book A More Just Future is where I first learned of Wendy Smith's book Both and Thinking, which as you know is the focus of the next episode. All those episodes, related books and of course your freebie worksheet on confirmation bias are all waiting for you in the show notes at the brainy business.com 260 and just like that, episode 260 on confirmation bias is done.

Join me Friday for a brand new.

Episode with Dr. Wendy Smith to discuss.

The both and thinking it's going to be a lot of fun. You don't want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and.

Learning with me, and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.