Come Clean

Cognitive Bias is a concept that details an aspect of human behaviour where in the pursuit of what we perceive to be truth, we pay more attention to what is cohesive with what we already believe, by extension, Confirmation Bias takes this concept and applies it to reasoning, driving us to accept that which confirms what we already believe as true.  These two concepts are very closely related, the latter is essentially related to individual beliefs and the former is related to cumulative belief, or to put it more succinctly, repetitive confirmation bias leads to long term cognitive bias.

The longer you allow confirmation bias to shape your thinking and your pursuit of knowledge, the more distorted your internal beliefs and understanding of the world becomes.  In the extreme, these biases combined can lead an individual to form an interpretation of the world that although appears entirely logical to the individual, is in reality inaccurate and inefficient.  Eventually this leads to conflict with beliefs and experiences that contradict the internal model.  In those moments there are decisions that need to be made which more often than not end up being decided by pride and prejudice rather than logic and reason - thank you Jane Austen.

Notions of judgement aside, there is a reason the concept of pride is derided by most religions, that ultimately pride can lead to the refusal to admit when you are wrong.  It is ironic then perhaps that religion would be the proponent of admitting you are wrong in the face of logic and reason that contradicts your beliefs when most religions don't actually let you question their beliefs but there we are. 

We live in a society that is increasingly divided, where polarisation is becoming the default state, where no middle ground can exist.  This in many ways is the result of the inability to admit when you are wrong.  There are very few things in life that are truly black and white issues with no grey area in between.  Yet the refusal to admit that grey area exists leads each side of the debate to distance themselves from anything that would admit to its existence, the result is that you end up with two polar opposites with no tolerance at all for opposing beliefs. 

If a centre ground is to be established once more, then there has to be an acknowledgement on all sides that mistakes were made on all sides.  Pride must be swallowed and there must be a moment of humility before you can begin to rebuild and find truth once more that is not biased that incorporates not only what you believe but challenges what you believe in order to strengthen that belief or to replace it with one that makes more sense - this is not easy when your identity is tied to your beliefs which is why prejudice needs to be abandoned, you need to accept evidence for what it is and build new beliefs through experience and accept that your beliefs do not define you as a person but that you as a person are meant to define your beliefs.

To turn the idea on its head that beliefs do not define you, is to accept that they are not rules that should dictate your life, but rather that they should be guidelines that attempt to explain your behaviour rather than control it.  Your beliefs should be based on your actions, then they will hold up to question otherwise you will profess beliefs that do not reflect how you act in reality as is so often the case with those who profess their adulation for various religious orders and claim to practice such beliefs when in reality their behaviour does not adhere to those beliefs.

I've mentioned many times on this blog how sites such as iSideWith can show you who you should vote for based on whose policies you agree with, the disparity that exists between the results that people are given and the party they actually vote for reflects the cognitive bias that exists in society and in politics specifically.  People form impressions of political parties and hold those as true and over time they pay attention to everything that confirms that impression and ignore everything that contradicts it, until you end up with a society that professes certain values yet votes for a party that does not enact policies that promotes those values but rather does everything to undermine them.  As stated above this can only end in one place, conflict, if that is to be avoided then there has to be an admission that you were wrong before efforts to bridge the gap can be taken seriously.