4 Ways to Unstick Your Stuck Thinking

I was recently at brunch with some friends, one of whom was bemoaning her fate to serve jury duty in the coming week. It was going to interfere with her work schedule and she didn’t see why she should have to take off time and lose money. Another friend said, “An attitude like that is exactly why our system breaks down. People try to get out of jury duty and then everything falls apart, when it actually works.” I signaled the waiter for some more coffee.

Before we knew what was what these two were in a heated debate over the efficacy of our legal system. The woman who was to serve jury duty saw it as a waste of time and anyone who served would be doing what was necessary to return to their lives ASAP, which wouldn’t be serving anyone. The defender of jury duty saw it as just that: civic duty as Americans to give everyone a fair trial. Both women were interrupting each other and neither was listening to anything but their own voice, so self-assured they each were in their comfortably stuck point of view.

It was clear Confirmation Bias had reared its ugly head. Whether we realize it or not we naturally tend to cling tightly to our beliefs and look for information that confirms our beliefs while disavowing information that contradicts them. We see what we want to see and we hear what we want to hear.

Meanwhile, I sat quietly sipping my coffee glad, for once, that it wasn’t me who was comfortably stuck.  

Needless to say, the debate went nowhere. It went nowhere because confirmation bias underscores the basic human need to be right, which often precludes being correct.

You’ll find no better example of confirmation bias than in the emotionally charged world of political opinion. Confirmation Bias pervades shows like Crossfire (CNN) and Hardball with Chris Matthews (MSNBC). You can watch nightly as every pundit cites only the examples that support their opinions.

My personal favorite study in Confirmation Bias was done in 2009 by three Ohio State University researchers: Heather LaMarre, Kristen Landreville and Michael Beam. They used Comedy Central’s satirical show, The Colbert Report, to investigate the subject. 

If you’ve never seen the show, Stephen Colbert adopts a faux persona who parodies conservative politics and pundits. The researchers asked 332 participants in the study to describe Colbert’s point-of-view. Those who held liberal opinions viewed him as a liberal and his show as pure satire. Conservatives, on the other hand, saw him as a conservative expressing honest conservative opinions through his satire. In short, the participants’ own views strongly colored their perceptions of the comedian.

Think about how prevalent and powerful this form of thinking is in our personal lives (especially with our significant others) and as a world family. It shapes how the media interprets what public figures say and dictates how we see the world, how we go about our lives, and the decisions we make. It has started wars and has instigated mass movements. If we are justifying our own wrong thought processes, you can start to see the chain reaction this creates in our personal lives and the world at large.

In the business world it can wreak havoc when we manage and lead. It prevents us from making effective judgments and decisions. Confirmation Bias interferes with our ability to gather all sides of an argument, consider all possible points of view and weigh a situation with a cool, objective mind.  It diminishes what psychologists call situational awareness.

When there is something that requires objective, clear thinking in your business or personal life, challenge your natural propensity to see what you want to see and hear what you want to hear by:

• Challenging your assumptions - try to disprove, rather than prove, your hypothesis.
• Seek outside opinion - get feedback from others who may see things differently than you.
• Writing it down – the written word will make you feel more accountable to your analysis.
• Admitting you were wrong, when appropriate - we hate to admit it, but humility goes a lot farther than rationalizations and justifications.

Once you start to develop awareness of Confirmation Bias its influence on your mind will loosen its grip. Fight the urge to explain away the feedback and remember the old saying, “We have two ears and one mouth for a reason, use them proportionally.”

Nicole Lipkin, Psy.D., MBA is a business psychologist and the CEO of Equilibria Leadership Consulting. She is a sought-after speaker, consultant, and coach and has shared her expertise on NPR, NBC, CBS, Fox Business News, and other high-profile media outlets. She is the author of "What Keeps Leaders Up At Night" and the co-author of "Y in the Workplace: Managing the "Me First" Generation." Check out the award winning book trailer for What Keeps Leaders Up At Night.