Back in the late 1980s, five young men were wrongfully convicted of raping and brutally assaulting a woman in Central Park. Those young men were dubbed the “Central Park Five.” A recent Netflix mini-series called, “When they See Us,” portrayed the story of these boys, and reminded me about the absurdity of the whole ordeal. Almost all of the evidence pointed toward their innocence. Yet the arresting officers and the District Attorney presumed the guilt of all of these boys, and selectively looked at evidence, while ignoring the massive amount of exonerating proof staring them right in the face.
The boys were arrested and served prison time, until the real perpetrator came forward and confessed to having committed the crime on his own. With the new confession, the arresting officers and the DA still refused to believe in the innocence of the five boys they had convicted. Why? Because of what behavioral economists call “confirmation bias,” our tendency to cherry-pick information that confirms our existing beliefs and feelings.
Confirmation bias explains why two people with opposing views can look at the same data, and each feel validated in their own views. Under the influence of this effect, the officers and the DA tried to argue that the boys must have been in some way involved. They were convinced despite the clear-cut evidence to the contrary.
Where does confirmation bias come from? It comes partially from our desire to always be right. So when we have a belief or feeling about a matter, we force everything to fit that interpretation. We search for information that confirms our feelings, we recall only what we want to remember, and we prejudice information to confirm the concrete ideas we have about the world. And, we see this tendency play out over and over in our lives, and throughout history.
Confirmation Bias
In pre-science medicine, bloodletting was used to cure and relieve just about every ailment known to man. We know today that it was almost never effective, but people nonetheless believed in its efficacy because of confirmation bias. Doctors ignored the results of patients who died, and instead focused on the patients who recovered naturally in order to confirm their belief that the treatment worked.
Confirmation bias may sound ridiculous, because we like to think that we are all able to see past ur own prejudices. But we can’t! Everyone wants to think that they have an open mind, but our opinions are less malleable than we want to admit.
One of the most clear cases of confirmation bias in the Torah is Pharaoh. After witnessing his own magician's’ ability to replicate Moses’s wonder of transforming his staff into a serpent, Pharaoh’s heart hardens. וַיֶּחֱזַק֙ לֵ֣ב פַּרְעֹ֔ה (Exodus 7:13). What does it mean that his heart hardens? It infers that he is unable to see what’s right before him. He has already formed the opinion that Moses and Aaron are rabble rousers, and not the agents of God. Once he believes that, he can’t change his mind. I don’t think it’s fair to blame Pharaoh for having a hardened heart. That’s the tendency of humanity. We have hardened hearts, and too often fail when it comes to making good judgments when evidence conflicts with the opinions we have already formed.
After Pharaoh hardens his own heart, we learn that God continues to harden Pharaoh’s heart. “וַיֹּ֤אמֶר יְהוָה֙ אֶל־מֹשֶׁ֔ה בֹּ֖א אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֑ה כִּֽי־אֲנִ֞י הִכְבַּ֤דְתִּי אֶת־לִבּוֹ֙, God says to Moses, go to Pharaoh for I have hardened his heart (Exodus 10:1). In case you were wondering why God would harden Pharaoh’s heart, I would remind you that God hardens your heart too. We are all created with and susceptible to confirmation bias. Or is your heart too hardened to admit that you have confirmation bias? The reason that people are continually perplexed by God hardening Pharaoh’s heart, it seems, is that they aren’t aware that this psychological phenomenon extends beyond Pharaoh. They think it’s a sole case, but really it’s representative of all of us. God hardens our hearts.
The political divides in our country are perhaps the pinnacle example of our confirmation biases. The impeachment trial of President Donald Trump illustrates quite remarkably how Democratic and Republican views are each entrenched. Evidence and data concerning the President’s case will only confirm their already strongly held beliefs and views. The votes––with few exceptions––have gone along party lines. God has not hardened their hearts as an act of divine intervention, but as the way that God created each one of us.
The good news is that people do possess the ability to overcome confirmation bias and change their minds. Stupidly, the political world disparages this type of person as a “flip-flopper.” Any politician willing to change their mind or their position demonstrates great strength among a chorus of pharaohs.
Here are several ways that we can avoid being the victims of confirmation bias:
Simply being aware of confirmation bias offsets its power to harden our hearts. Pharaoh didn’t know that his heart was hardened. Maybe if he did, he would have simply understood that you don’t mess with God. If you want to beat confirmation bias, simply remind yourself that you may be under its grip.
Daniel Kahanaman, the behavioral economist, has another trick that he recommends: “When someone says something, don’t ask if it is true. Ask what it might be true of.” Kahanaman employed this practice in his work, and sought to make sense of someone’s statement as opposed to tearing it down. We always want to show why we are right and someone else is wrong. And that’s not the way the power of persuasion works. In fact, it will have the opposite effect, it will more deeply entrench someone else in their own argument.
In the Talmud, amidst the two competing schools of thought, the rabbis always favor Rabbi Hillel’s view over that of his rival, Shamai. The reason the rabbis give is that he would first explain the opposing position, and only after he thoroughly explained Shamai’s view, did he explain his own. To avoid confirmation bias, try not just to understand opposing views, but seek to explain them from the perspective that is not your own. It’s hard, but it’s a great exercise.
We all have hardened hearts. And if you don’t believe me, then that’s because your heart is too hard. We are all susceptible of confirmation bias, and we will surely dig into our own positions as best we can, because that’s what humans do. But the next time you are about to scream at the TV because of a politician, the next time someone says something that sounds like lunacy–– but the idea is held by a great number of people, or the next time you are confident in your convictions, ask yourself if you’re not the victim of confirmation bias.