Mental model · Where thinking goes wrong
Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias: Searching for and weighting information that agrees with what you already think. It feels like research.
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Searching for and weighting information that agrees with what you already think. It feels like research.
Try it now
Take a conclusion you reached recently. Write how much effort you spent on the evidence that agreed versus the evidence that did not.
What to do with the answer
Go and find the strongest disagreeing source you can, and give it the same attention you gave the agreeing one.
Where it misleads
Knowing about it does not prevent it. The only reliable counter is a process — someone assigned to disagree, or a written record.
The module it belongs to
- Critical Thinking — Evaluate claims and evidence
The book behind it
- Thinking fast and slow — Its big ideas, in our own words.