If you are reading this, you are probably an investigator. It may not be your job title, but if you are a lawyer, auditor, doctor, HR business partner, manager, executive, etc., a big part of your job is investigatory, requiring you to arrive at well-reasoned, fact-based, modern decisions, guidance or recommendations. You regularly make searching, systematic inquiries based on examination of relevant facts, data and information. How do you determine what is relevant when you investigate? It’s likely that you unconsciously select or rely too heavily on information you already agree with and pay little or no attention to data that conflicts with your beliefs.
If you want to make better decisions without being influenced by the subconscious biases that govern human behavior, it is important to be aware of a silent and insidious flaw in our thinking known as confirmation bias. It is an invisible hand guiding all decisions we make, often leading us astray by masquerading as reason. Confirmation bias “typically used in the psychological literature, connotes the seeking or interpreting of evidence in ways that are partial to existing beliefs, expectations or a hypothesis in hand” (“Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises” by Raymond S. Nickerson, University Review of General Psychology 1998, Vol. 2, No. 2).
