***To all my loyal readers: I will be taking off the month of August 2026 as annual leave from writing my blog posts. From September 1st I will resume and continue to publish new weekly posts that I have designed with you all in mind! Your continued feedback on this blog and on social media is very much appreciated and it certainly influences, encourages and helps my writing. Thank you.

With very best wishes, Linda.

Clive Head. Coffee at the Cottage Delight [2010]Flickr.https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

“We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”

Anaïs Nin

In this post, I will be explaining the meaning of the term confirmation bias; I will also reveal how dangerous this can be if we are unaware of its effects on our relationships, our ways of thinking and our decisions.

Without being conscious of it, we can be powerfully affected by constantly seeking out biased information that actively affirms our own beliefs. This will mean that we will not see the world, and the people in it, as they are, but through a lens that is misshapen by our own prejudices, beliefs and skewed ways of seeing. Many people completely miss the existence of such confirmation bias and its damaging effects on all those involved.

Herbert Ploberger – Self-Portrait with Ophthalmological Objects [1928-30]Canonical URL https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

“We tend to accept information that confirms our prior beliefs and ignore or discredit information that does not. This confirmation bias settles over our eyes like distorting spectacles for everything we look at.”

Kyle Hill

Wassily Kandinsky – Improvisation 11 1910. Flickr

“If they never heard your side of the story, then the side they did hear is just a reflection of how they already felt about you. It’s confirmation bias.”

Unknown source.

Hearing only a partial account, one side of the story, will mean that there is ample room to embroider and improvise on the one-sided ‘truth.’

People who consistently accept one person’s narrative and do not even try to hear, or consider, the other side, can be dangerous, for they may also spread rumours and gossip that are inaccurate and untrue. In doing so, they are actually revealing a great deal about themselves. It may be very satisfying to practise this sort of biased, one-sided way of being in the world, but it can cause damage to self and other.

Such satisfaction, however, is usually short-lived, and it indicates a narrow and defensive way of being. Perhaps the thought of seeing the whole picture can be threatening to those who have rigid and judgemental approaches to life, those who do not want their set ways of thinking to be in any way challenged.

Dick Scholten, Pexels.

“Did you ever read my words, or did you merely finger through them for quotations which you thought might valuably support an already conceived idea concerning some old and distorted connection between us?”

Audre Lorde

Echo Chamber. Author Evbestie, Dabmasterars, Belbury. 2026. Wikimedia Commons

“The proliferation of material means that people might start to become selective about what they consume and, if my instincts are correct, they are likely to read only that which confirms what they already know. This means they will never have their ideas tested. I worry that as a result, people will form tight groups around those who confirm their biases, mistrusting those whom they encounter who think differently.”

Una McCormack

This quotation can also be seen as referring to  echo chambers, in that it shows how people often desire to be amongst others who think in the same way as themselves, with nothing to challenge or change their ways of thinking.

“Echo chamber:
noun: a room with sound-reflecting walls used for producing hollow or echoing sound effects —often used figuratively:
“Living in a kind of echo chamber of their own opinions, they pay attention to information that fits their conclusions and ignore information that does not.””
James Surowiecki

Surowiecki’s words accurately explain the symbolic meaning of the phrase ‘echo chamber.’  It can refer to individuals or groups of people. Some people have unyielding views and they totally block out anything that challenges these views. Their own ideas constantly reverberate in their heads, obliterating doubt and swiftly rejecting any challenge to their fixed ways of thinking.

“Seek with enough conviction aforethought and ye shall find.”

Stephen Jay Gould

Searching for information that fits our own cognitive bias also means we will reject or downplay evidence that does not confirm this. There will be no room for disagreement or contradiction of this one-sided ‘evidence.’

“Data has an annoying way of conforming itself to support whatever point of view we want it to support.”

Clayton M. Christensen

As new ‘facts’ are more and more confirmed, perhaps through hearsay or other sources, these will be regarded as supporting our ways of seeing and we will become increasingly entrenched in a false ‘validation’ of what we believe to be true.

“People are always clinging to what they want to hear, discarding the evidence that doesn’t fit with their beliefs, giving greater weight to evidence that does.”

Paula Stokes

Jansson, Eugène Fredrik (1862-1915) – Ring Gymnast – 1911. Wikimedia Commons

“With enough mental gymnastics, just about any fact can become misshapen in favour to one’s confirmation bias.”

Criss Jami

Our lives, and especially our decisions, will be based on untruths and cognitive distortions, which can mean that we will be ignoring the facts and evidence about other people, ourselves and the world around us, that complete a true picture. In all aspects of our life, if we do not challenge our own thinking, we will overlook warnings, real evidence, constructive dialogue, accuracy, and truth.

“Confirmation bias is the most effective way to go on living a lie.”

Criss Jami

An antidote to confirmation bias is to engage in critical thinking. This involves being able to make a decision or judgement based on clear and rational interpretation, analysis and evaluation. Without these important factors, our ways of thinking will, inevitably, be distorted and faulty. If we merely accept things at face value, without consideration or informed questioning, confirmation bias will affect our thinking in detrimental and illogical ways.

It will cause us to ignore some aspects of the world and pay more attention to others. Unconsciously, we will become adept at selectively filtering out the information that does not fit our beliefs and ways of seeing.

If we are really determined to develop our ability to think critically, we can challenge ourselves and others and work at confronting such biases. We might want to begin by actively seeking out information and evidence that could possibly disprove our own arguments. It is important to search for contradictory arguments, opposing viewpoints and perspectives that are contrary to our own beliefs, however discomforting and unsettling this might feel.

With an attitude of openness and a willingness to be ‘wrong,’ we could also consult others who could point out what we might be overlooking or ignoring in our quest for ‘truth.’

Then, questions will abound: What might we have missed? What are we repeatedly noticing at the expense of other aspects of life? What are we not seeing… and exactly where are our blind spots?

Image: Pexels. Erva Yörük 

“If you are thinking about buying a particular make of new car, you suddenly see people driving that car all over the roads. If you just ended a longtime relationship, every song you hear seems to be written about love. If you are having a baby, you start to see babies everywhere. Confirmation bias is seeing the world through a filter.”

David McRaney

© Linda Berman