Does My Thinking Smell Funny?
Confirmation bias — looking for evidence that supports a belief and throwing away anything that disagrees with it.
I work for a company with a great product in a competitive market. I help write marketing material that shows off our solution in a positive light.
Other marketers use advertising to create a positive bias towards their brand. Nike wants to motivate you to “Just do it” with their swoosh. Tide wants your clothes to be whiter and brighter.
Bias is fine for shoes or detergent; do you run faster with their shoes or do your clothes look better? Perhaps, but in most cases, the outcome you receive is subjective.
However, in science, a bias is a problem and an error in thinking and unfortunately, confirmation bias has taken a deadly turn. In the current COVID-19 pandemic, cognitive biases have led to unnecessary deaths of too many people. And while we can point fingers, the problem is deeper than ‘to mask’ or not ‘to mask’.
Since the dawn of time…
