Confirmation Bias

Consider the following hypothetical situation: Jane is the manager of a local coffee shop. She is a firm believer in the motto, “hard work equals success.” The coffee shop, however, has seen a slump in sales over the past few months. Since Jane strongly believes that “hard work” is a means to success, she concludes that the dip in the coffee shop’s sales is because her staff is not working hard enough. To account for this, Jane puts several measures in place to ensure that her staff is working consistently. Consequently, she ends up spending more money by having a greater number of employees staffed on a shift, exceeding the shop’s budget and thus contributing to overall losses.

Consulting with other business owners in her area, Jane is able to identify her store’s new, less visible location as the primary cause of her sales slump. Her belief in hard work as the most important metric of success led her to mistakenly identify employees’ lack of effort as the reason for the store’s falling revenue while ignoring evidence that pointed to the true cause: the shop’s poor location. Jane has fallen victim to confirmation bias, which caused her to notice and give greater credence to evidence that fits with her pre-existing beliefs.

As this example illustrates, our personal beliefs can weigh us down when conflicting information is present. Not only does it stop us from finding a solution, but we also may not even be able to identify the problem to begin with.