The Power of Confirmation Bias
Brian McLaren discusses one of the most powerful kinds of bias: Confirmation Bias.
We all have filters: What do I already believe? Does this new idea or piece of information confirm what I already think? Does it fit in the frame I’ve already constructed?
If so, I can accept it.
If not, in all likelihood, I’m simply going to reject it as unreasonable and unbelievable, even though doing so is, well, unreasonable.
I do this, not to be ignorant, but to be efficient. My brain (without my conscious awareness, and certainly without my permission) makes incredibly quick decisions as it evaluates incoming information or ideas. Ideas that fit in are easy and convenient to accept, and they give me pleasure because they confirm what I already think.
But ideas that don’t fit easily will require me to think, and think twice, and maybe even rethink some of my long-held assumptions. That kind of thinking is hard work. It requires a lot of time and energy. My brain has a lot going on, so it interprets hard work like this as pain.
It’s as if I’m presented with a new picture that won’t fit in my old frame and so requires me to build a new one. Wanting to save me from that extra reframing work, my brain presses a “reject” or “delete” button when a new idea presents itself. “I’ll stick with my current frame, thank you very much,” it says. And it gives me a little jolt of pleasure to reward me for my efficiency.
You may have heard the old saying that people only change their minds when the pain of not changing surpasses the pain of changing. That old saying is all about confirmation bias.
In an episode of the Learning How to See podcast, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis speaks of confirmation bias in this way:
We are all wired by what we’ve experienced to be in search of a story with an ending … that feels like it has a completion. The stories that we gravitate to are the ones that make sense to us, stories that fit, stories that feel like they have continuity, connection to the past, where we’ve been…. Those stories that we will follow are the ones that feel true, feel like they have continuity to our past and that resonate with the trajectory of our lives. We’re looking for the story that doesn’t necessarily change our minds; we’re actually looking for the story that confirms what’s in our minds.
As we seek to recognize the ways we are influenced by bias, McLaren offers this prayer:
Source of all truth, (Coach) help me to hunger for truth, even if it upsets, modifies, or overturns what I already think is true. Guide me into all the truth I can bear and stretch me to bear more, so that I may always choose the whole truth, even with disruption, over half- truths with self-deception. Grant me the passion to follow wisdom wherever it leads. Thank you.
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| An Unworldly Strength. from Skye Jethani |
| On the night Jesus was betrayed, before his arrest, he prayed to his Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. Luke described him as being in agony. The fear and pain were so intense that “his sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:44). This is not the image of a serene Messiah accepting his fate, but of a frightened man wrestling with the darkest evil our world can dispense. But through prayer, Luke says Jesus was strengthened. The power given to him, however, was not like the world’s power. When the soldiers arrived to arrest him, his disciples were terrified, and in their fear, some fled, and others attacked. Peter drew a sword and severed the ear of one of the men. This is what the world’s power looks like. It fights. It attacks. It kills.The strength Jesus carried was different. Displaying a power not of this world, he knelt to the ground, picked up the severed ear of his enemy, and healed him. “Put your sword back,” he told Peter. “For all who take the sword will perish by the sword” (Matthew 26:52). Through prayer, Jesus’ fear had been transformed into faith. His faith gave him strength. And this strength was revealed through love. Today, fear permeates the American church. Many Christians have been told their faith and their communities are under attack, and like the disciples in Gethsemane, they believe the only option is to fight fire with fire. Fear has allowed the church to justify all manner of things inconsistent with Jesus’ character. In fear, the church attacks those perceived to be a threat. In fear, the church uses the weapons of the world—coercion, deception, anger, and hate—to protect itself rather than trusting God to defend his people. The true church, however, knows that the same unworldly strength Jesus displayed in the garden—the strength of faith and love—is still available to us. Consider the story of Praying Jacob, a slave who lived in Maryland before the Civil War. It was his habit to stop his work periodically in the fields to pray. This practice gave Jacob his nickname, and it also enraged his owner, a cruel and terrible man named Saunders. One day Saunders came up to Jacob while he was praying and put a gun to his head. He ordered him to stop praying and get back to work. Jacob finished his prayers and invited Saunders to pull the trigger. “Your loss will be my gain,” he said. “I have a soul and a body; the body belongs to you, but my soul belongs to Jesus.” Saunders was so shaken by Jacob’s strength and supernatural lack of fear that he never touched him again. Praying Jacob’s serenity came from the assurance of his identity. He knew he belonged to Jesus, and nothing could ever remove him from his hand. Not a cruel master and not even death. This was the same faith Jesus displayed in the garden and throughout his journey to the cross. He knew he belonged to his Father. Despite the betrayal and abandonment of his friends. Despite the injustice of the authorities. Despite the mocking and torture of the Romans. Despite the insults and ridicule hurled at him from the crowds. Jesus still found the strength to love because he knew who he was and whose he was.Like Jesus and Praying Jacob, if the church learns to listen to the voice of God in prayer, the weapons of the world will become less tempting. Through prayer, the church will learn that fighting fire with fire only burns the house down faster. And in prayer, the church will discover its fear is transformed into faith and its anger into love. DAILY SCRIPTURE MATTHEW 26:47-56 EPHESIANS 4:4-7 WEEKLY PRAYER. From Anselm (1033 – 1109) O Lord, we bring before you the distress and dangers of peoples and nations, the pleas of the imprisoned and the captive, the sorrows of the grief-stricken, the needs of the refugees, the importance of the weak, the weariness of the despondent, and the diminishments of the aging. O Lord, stay close to all of them, Amen. |
