When you see only what you believe 👀 — Confirmation bias

This mental mistake filters what you see.

Let’s say you and your partner are munching on blueberries when a few fall on the floor. Your dog slouching nearby starts drooling when he notices that food dropped.

Is it okay to let him have it?

Now you remember hearing somewhere that blueberries aren’t good for dogs. What if it’s toxic? 😱 You want to confirm your suspicion by googling it.

You don’t have all the time to read through the entire search results page. No one does.

Few things shine out (underlined in red below)…

There it is…..Your suspicion is confirmed.

Unlike you, your partner believes blueberries are good for dogs. He does his own Google search as follows:

He skims through his search results page. Few things shine out (underlined in red above) confirming it’s a great idea to feed the dog blueberries.

What the hell just happened?!

How you phrase your search determines what kind of results you see.

But it’s not just Google where you see what you want to see. In the world around us, we lean in towards things that we already believe in:

• We find proof for things we already made up our minds for.
• We reject facts that don’t match our thinking.

This mental mistake we make so often is called confirmation bias.

In case you didn’t know, bias is the fancy name psychologists use for a mental mistake.

For the definition lovers:

Confirmation bias is the mental mistake of paying more attention to information that confirms your beliefs and ignoring information with opposing views.

e.g., We don’t realize how often we are guilty of judging people based on the first interaction we have with them.

Is the first impression the last impression?

When you meet someone for the first time, your brain quickly creates an initial impression of that person. “That’s a funny person” or “That’s a smart person” or “I can trust this person”, etc. Whatever interactions you have after that, your brain tries to fit things within the same impression.

Our first impression quickly turns into a belief.

Let’s say on another day, you find your ‘funny’ person in the middle of a serious argument. Changing the mental image of that person from ‘funny’ to ‘serious’ is hard work for your brain. It is easier to ignore a fact (or two 😉).

Instead of updating an impression, your brain goes with the easier option, “This person is typically funny, today must be an exception.”

Unless it happens time and again, your brain keeps rolling with the first impression.

This is bad news if you come across as a jerk in your first meeting with your new boss/client. So is showing up late for your first date!

Can you fix a bad impression someone has of you?

Yes, but it needs work.

Here are two ways suggested by social psychologist Heidi Grant. These methods are named the tortoise and the hare way because of the time it takes to update an impression.

The tortoise way — Slow and steady

Give people abundant reasons to believe otherwise, day after day after day:

For example:

• If you came across as unhelpful at work, go to their desk each day and offer help.
• If you came across as dumb, make a smart point each day.
• If you came across as a jerk, get them a cup of coffee or take them out to lunch, etc.

Maybe in days, weeks, or months 😳, when there’s enough evidence in their mind, they’ll update their impression of you!

The hare way — A teeny bit faster

Sorry, even this method isn’t lightning fast ⚡️ Think of it as a faster tortoise rather than a sprinting hare.

Find a way to work with that person. Better, get in a situation where they need you.

When people need you or when they are working with you, they try to be accurate about understanding you as a person. In doing so, they are open to finding more about you and discarding any initial impressions of you.

That’s why it’s common for people to say, “I used to think so and so about her but after working with her, I found out she’s quite nice/helpful/smart…”

You can also use the same strategy in a learning environment.

As a teacher or parent, if you think two kids started on the wrong foot, give them more opportunities to work together. Even if you put two strangers in one team, you are increasing their chances of becoming friends.

Working together gives people a second chance to change their first impression.

That was about changing first impressions in the professional and learning environment.

But how about changing first impressions in your personal life?

The tricky thing about confirmation bias (as with other biases) is that it’s easier to spot others making a mistake than realize you making the same mistake.

The one who didn’t stop the shop talk

A few years back, my husband and I met this couple for the first time. The husband was an employee of a tech giant. Throughout the evening, he kept bringing that up in all his conversations. Safe to say, he came across as a corporate nerd. His wife, on the other hand, was full of interesting ideas and stories about various countries they had lived in.

When you hang out with new people, you either like them or not. If you like them, you meet again. If you don’t, you mark them as ‘not our types’ in your mind.

As we really liked the wife, we resisted our urge to label them as ‘not our types’ yet. Wise decision.

Two weeks later, they invited us over. The guy had planned some exciting card games. That was followed by some interesting conversations and lots of drinks and laughter. We couldn’t even spot the corporate nerd!

After another couple of lively get-togethers with our new friends, we realized that his work was stressful. He probably had an awful day at work the first time we met. Talking about work was his only way of letting off the steam.

As it turns out, just by spending more time together, you can get past the mental mistakes made during the first interaction.

Imagine how many beautiful friendships, relationships, and connections are we missing out on while rushing to label people after the first interaction.

How to avoid making this mental mistake?

Predicting things is a survival skill from the hunter-gatherer times. There might be a predator hiding behind those bushes. There could be deadly snakes in the tall grasses. The air is cooler in this part of the forest so a freshwater stream must be nearby.

Your mind is always playing the guessing game.

Know that they are just guesses. Unless your guesswork is supported with facts, don’t let it turn into a belief.

Instead of looking up “Are blueberries bad for dogs?”, look for “dogs and blueberries”, or “Can I feed my dog blueberries?”

Besides googling in with neutral search phrases, we need to see, hear, and feel things with an open mind. Especially when it comes to people.

If I dislike someone the first time I meet them, I put them in a “Dunno them yet” bucket. This bucket needs at least four meetings to fill up.

This little mind trick helps me avoid the mistake we almost made with the friendly couple.

People are more complex than what meets the eye in the first meeting. We need to become flexible about changing our views as we learn more about them.

As for the dog who’s still wondering whether he’ll get the damn blueberries…

He’ll be happy with the result of a neutral search phrase (screenshot below).

Learn to dodge the ten biggest mental mistakes. Subscribe to my free newsletter, 10x your mind 🧠.

This article was first published here.