Confirmation Bias in Professional Settings
Our common tendency to create theories, cherry-pick supporting evidence, and then present our conclusions as universal truths. More common than we actually acknowledge.
Lately every other day on my LinkedIn or Twitter feed, I notice someone sharing a "brilliant observation" about business trends, only to see thoughtful counterarguments quietly disappear from the comment section.
During my engineering, I was part of the organization committee with a senior on our tech fest team who kept making jokes every now and then. I formed my theory: jovial guy, but unreliable for serious decisions.
Over the next few weeks, I filtered every story about him through this lens:
- Only remembering examples supporting my theory
- Discarded instances that contradicted it
- Focused only on negative parts when others shared their experiences
Out of the blue, two PSU sponsors pulled out due to some issue at their end, leaving us stranded. That same "unreliable" senior stepped up, secured replacement sponsors plus additional funding - 10% more than we budgeted.
The mechanism is powerful: once we form a theory, our brains filter out observations that don't fit our narrative.
Lately on my feed, I see the same pattern:
- Someone shares a confident business theory
- Quite a few comment to validate this
- Few share data-backed counterarguments
- Some agree, but quite a few just delete the challenging comments
This clearly highlights our common tendency to create theories, cherry-pick supporting evidence, and then present our conclusions as universal truths. More common than we actually acknowledge.