How Did Confirmation Bias Evolve?

[Dymanic]

My guess would be that it has leadership benefit. People don't follow those who change their minds based on evidence. Evidence that the followers likely don't know about or can understand. They don't want truth, they want guidance (see religion). That can be applied to the leader of the clan, or to daddy who uses it on the wife and kids.

Bingo. That's pretty much what I had in mind here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2938305&postcount=13

But if an animal learned it via trial and error, it would still technically be inherited.

Ehhh... sorry, I can't quite get that to work for me; not even with one eye closed. Nice try and all. But there is a possible mechanism by which learned behavior might be converted to inherited behavior. Ever heard of the "Baldwin effect"?

 

[Mr. Scott]

Where is there any evidence that "ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs"?

You said there was "no shred of truth," so I offered you the shreds that convinced me. Now you ask for "any evidence" which I feel I gave you. A goalpost move?

Why don't you offer something positive to the discussion instead of just tearing down?

How do you think confirmation bias works?

 

[robinson]

"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
~Tolstoy

 

[robinson]

I searched the information you provided. There was no evidence that "ignoring evidence against a belief one firmly holds stimulates the same pleasure centers as addictive drugs". There was MRI data that suggest that the emotional regions were active, rather than the logic and higher reason centers were being used. Which I can understand. It is obvious from even casual conversations that deeply held beliefs are not based on reason or logic, but by emotional needs and strong motivation to avoid thinking, which often leads to stress. Having to think about something causes one to feel uncomfortable, it produces unease, most people desire comfort and relaxation, not conflict or change. Having to face that ones deeply held beliefs are wrong, is incredibly stressful, and can lead to all kinds of side effects, and no sense of peace until the situation has been resolved.

I find the entire idea fascinating. I haven't really felt qualified to jump into the conversation, not having spent the time educating myself on the matter, in regards to the published data and various research into this.

It is a rare bird that will buck the tide of common knowledge, social opinion, the Mores if you will. In the past going against the ruling class, or the ruling religion, could get you ostracized, banished, tortured, or even killed, in very unpleasant ways. In fact, that is still the case in many places. If this is an inherited trait, it is obvious why it was selected for. Anyone who didn't have the ability to fit in, to not ask questions, to not point out the obvious flaws in things, would never survive to adulthood, much less have any chance to reproduce.

I tend to agree that it is a type of selection bias, especially in regards to politics and interpreting new information. There is a great difficulty in even examining the nature of the thing, due to the way information is transmitted by Television and Newspaper reporting. Even scientific papers and publications suffer from this unconscious tendency to not see what is, but what we want to see.

Paul Simon noted this with great precision in his song, "The Boxer".

"A man sees what he wants to see, and disregards the rest..."

Herbert Spencer is well known for phrasing it as,
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance—that principle is contempt prior to investigation.”

But I think good old Tolstoy said it best,

"Most men can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, have proudly taught to others, and have woven thread by thread into the fabric of their lives."
~~ Tolstoy

Mark Twain seemed to have been quite aware of this human condition, as well as many other authors, playwrights and artist of all kinds.

If the man doesn't believe as we do, we say he is a crank, and that settles it. It mean, it does nowadays, because now we can't burn him.
Mark Twain, - Following the Equator

Between believing a thing and thinking you know is only a small step and quickly taken.
Mark Twain, - "3,000 Years Among the Microbes"

How does this happen? How do we go from being wide eyed questioning children, full of wonder, curiosity and delight, to the close minded and dumb adult? Certainly it isn't an inherent condition, for if so it would be observable in children and primitives. Which it certainly is not.

 

[kellyb]

Ehhh... sorry, I can't quite get that to work for me; not even with one eye closed. Nice try and all.

Let me try again.
Human children, around toddlerhood, universally start doing things like pouring their drinks on the floor. They do it for a while and then just get over it one day.
Is this an inherited behavior?

 

[Michael C]

How does this happen? How do we go from being wide eyed questioning children, full of wonder, curiosity and delight, to the close minded and dumb adult?

I don't think we do. Certainly young children ask a lot of questions, but these questions are not about putting cherished beliefs to the test. A child will ask things like "what's that?", "what's this for?" or "why does such and such happen?" and will believe any convincing answer from Mummy of Daddy. It's normal for children to believe everything their parents tell them, be it about the Tooth Fairy, Santa or God.

At some point, as they grow up, the children will begin to question the truth of what Mummy and Daddy say. Children of religious parents don't turn atheist when they're six, but they might when they're fifteen, or twenty, or even later. If we can learn to question beliefs that we have been taking for granted for years, it's a sign that we're growing up. The idea of looking for evidence against a belief in order to test its veracity is not something we pick up easily.

Maybe the close-minded and dumb adults are the ones who haven't grown up enough?

 

[Jeff Corey]

Let me try again.
Human children, around toddlerhood, universally start doing things like pouring their drinks on the floor. They do it for a while and then just get over it one day.
Is this an inherited behavior?

Universally? I think not. This is worse than your example of trial and error learning (operant conditioning) in which the ability to learn is due to the genetic endowment, but the specific behaviors learned are not.

 

[kellyb]

Universally? I think not. This is worse than your example of trial and error learning (operant conditioning) in which the ability to learn is due to the genetic endowment, but the specific behaviors learned are not.

You don't think the basic stages of child development are evolutionarily programmed? I'd say even at the very beginning, crying to signal hunger was selected for.

Do you agree with this statement?

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00....0.CO;2-V&size=LARGE&origin=JSTOR-enlargePage

This paper argues that there are powerful similarities between cognitive development in children and scientific theory change. These similarities are best explained by postulating an underlying abstract set of rules and representations that underwrite both types of cognitive abilities. In fact, science may be successful largely because it exploits powerful and flexible cognitive devices that were designed by evolution to facilitate learning in young children.

Nevermind if science exploits the process, but do you think the way we think and learn to navigate through our environment and experiment with the world is genetically programmed into us?

Look at the way felines play when they're young...from the domesticated cat up to young tigers, they are driven to immitate catching prey in a way that closely resembles how they'll later get food. They are gaining certain cat-specific skills. I find it hard to believe that this is not an inherited, genetic, evolutionarily programmed behavior, or that humans don't do human-specific things while developing, as well. The effects of having the environment respond in a predictable way would, I guess, be vaugely similar to operant conditioning (sort of) but the drive to experiment and learn in a specific way would have to be inherited to some degree.

ETA:
There are experiments that demonstrate that how intelligent species think is specific to their environments. It's not simply behavior that's inherited, but the thought process behind those behaviors, as well.

http://wjh.harvard.edu/~mnkylab/publications/recent/stevens2005c.pdf

Nonhuman animals steeply discount the future,
showing a preference for small, immediate over large,
delayed rewards [1–5]. Currently unclear is whether
discounting functions depend on context. Here, we
examine the effects of spatial context on discounting
in cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus oedipus) and common
marmosets (Callithrix jacchus), species known
to differ in temporal discounting [5]. We presented
subjects with a choice between small, nearby rewards
and large, distant rewards. Tamarins traveled farther
for the large reward than marmosets, attending to the
ratio of reward differences rather than their absolute
values. This species difference contrasts with performance
on a temporal task in which marmosets waited
longer than tamarins for the large reward. These comparative
data indicate that context influences choice
behavior, with the strongest effect seen in marmosets
who discounted more steeply over space than over
time. These findings parallel details of each species’
feeding ecology. Tamarins range over large distances
and feed primarily on insects, which requires using
quick, impulsive action. Marmosets range over shorter
distances than tamarins and feed primarily on tree exudates,
a clumped resource that requires patience to
wait for sap to exude [6–9]. These results show that
discounting functions are context specific, shaped by
a history of ecological pressures.

 

[robinson]

Where is the data that says confirmation bias being confronted is linked to pleasurable sensations? I missed it.

Me too. I can't find anything that associates ignoring evidence with the same effect as addictive drugs.

 

[Jeff Corey]

You don't think the basic stages of child development are evolutionarily programmed? I'd say even at the very beginning, crying to signal hunger was selected for. ..

What has any of that got to do with the alleged universal tendency to spill drinks on the floor?

 

[kellyb]

What has any of that got to do with the alleged universal tendency to spill drinks on the floor?

Child development experts consider the "spilling drinks on the floor" thing one of the aspects of the toddler "little scientists" phase. While there's variation in the exact month it sets in, it's a normal and expected part of child development.

http://www.drspock.com/article/0,1510,3899,00.html

Piaget believed that human development proceeds in stages that are the same for everybody. Through a careful description of these stages, he explained how an infant with little ability to think abstractly comes to be able to understand how things work, to reason logically, and to invent new ideas that he has never seen or heard before.

Lots of little experiments
Piaget viewed infants and children as "little scientists," born with a drive to make sense of the world. Consider the fact that children are constantly experimenting.

A Swiss psychologist named Jean Piaget described stages of cognitive development. An example of the first stage - which he called "sensorimotor" - is the baby dropping things off his highchair.

What drives the development of thinking is the child's inborn urge to understand the world of people, things, and ideas. At each stage, the child creates theories about the way the world works.

Young children cannot tell us about these theories, but we can observe them in action. As the child gathers more and more experience, eventually she is forced to give up her old theories, and create new ones. This process drives the child from one stage in cognitive development to the next.

 

[robinson]

Worst topic ever.

Why?

Because the basis of the conversation hasn't been discussed in a rational or skeptical manner. You just jumped into talking about something, rather than explaining why your theory is even possible! It is like discussing "why did the ability to throw a Frisbee evolve?".

You make broad sweeping assumptions, and discuss stuff like it is just a known fact, rather than using logic and reason to defend your position, your conclusions, your though process. For example,

Generally speaking, in higher mammals, genes that affect behavior do so with proximate mechanisms that ordinarily push them towards reproductive advantage but can be overruled by contingencies, conflicting tendencies, rational reassessments, etc.

WTF? Where did that come from? What does it even mean?

For example, a mother who accurately evaluates threats to her offspring will surely pass on her genes better than one that goes with her first impression about a threat and repels evidence that she's wrong. Ergo Confirmation Bias should be selected against. My question form the OP was: Why isn't it?

See? What the hell kind of reasoning is that? You assume that a huge, complex set of behaviors is something simple, "evaluates threats to her offspring", becomes a genetic trait, and somehow is passed on by DNA, which is absurd. "Ergo Confirmation Bias should be selected against." WTF? How can you make such a huge leap of faith like that? Suddenly a vast range of behaviors, including learned behaviors, becomes a genetic trait. In what Universe is this considered reality?

I don't have a problem with the possibility that there was a genetic mutation that sent a nerve cell from the cluster that registered "I'm ignoring what isn't consistent with what I know" to the cluster that generates pleasure.

What? Do you have any idea of what you are talking about? I mean, really?

 

[kellyb]

You assume that a huge, complex set of behaviors is something simple, "evaluates threats to her offspring", becomes a genetic trait, and somehow is passed on by DNA, which is absurd.

Is it absurd?
Do you think the way animal mothers protect their offspring (also a huge, complex set of behaviors) is a genetic trait, passed on by DNA?
Why do mammal mothers eat their placentas (sans humans)?
Have you ever had a dog or cat that had kittens or puppies? Ever seen the way they move them around from room to room? Why? Why would a domesticated animal in a safe environment keep transfering the babies into different rooms like that?

 

[cyborg]

robinson - there is both hardware and software when we talk about behaviour.

The way the hardware (brain) is built will dictate the type of software (mind) that will develop.

Hence: certain types of software behaviour are advantageous, others are not. Evolution selects based on the software, not on the hardware. However the hardware influences how the software works. Therefore behaviours can evolve.

It is roughly analogous to the pheno/genotype distinction. The tertiary structures DNA create are not explicitly coded and are subject to environmental constraints. As such you should really think of this in terms of sets, or groups, of related behaviours/expressions and ranges of variation within them. (I.e. what is it that is constant? What is it that can vary?)

 

[blutoski]

But if an animal learned it via trial and error, it would still technically be inherited. The nature to test a theory by looking for a patterns would be an inherited trait.

But that's not what we're not talking about vaguely testing a theory by looking for a pattern. We're talking about a specific strategy for doing so: confirmation bias.

They/we could have learned that confirmation bias is more efficient than other means. Testing the environment: genetic; confirmation bias: learned.

The same way that we have the capacity for language, but the language is culturally learned. Language: genetic; Bushman tongue-clicking: learned.

 

[kellyb]

But that's not what we're not talking about vaguely testing a theory by looking for a pattern. We're talking about a specific strategy for doing so: confirmation bias.

They/we could have learned that confirmation bias is more efficient than other means. Testing the environment: genetic; confirmation bias: learned.

The same way that we have the capacity for language, but the language is culturally learned. Language: genetic; Bushman tongue-clicking: learned.

Well, even with the bushman tongue clicking, what's interesting is that (this is a popular theory in child development at the moment...not sure if it'll still be thought of as "the truth" in 20 years or whatever) in the pre-verbal stage of development, babies/toddlers actually go through and practice all the sounds used in cultures all over the world, and they only retain the ones specific to their culture. So in a way, you could say the tongue clicking is probably genetic to some extent. It just usually gets trumped by some drive to stop making sounds no one around you makes.

Either way, regarding confirmation bias, I don't think anyone really knows for sure how the nuts and bolts of cognitive evolution work yet. My own "intuitive feeling" on the matter is that the thought process behind it is probably genetic, and it's probably part of being human. But since that's just a guess, and no one really knows much about any of this yet, I can see the point that speculating about how it works is kind of silly.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

Language: genetic. Ability to speak a particular language: learned.


I still say the tendency to commit confirmation bias might just be a by product of something else, and I'd worry about whether it's a trait that is selected for before asking the how or why.

Would you say pareidolia is a trait that evolved? (See my previous post.) Is there a reproductive advantage or disadvantage to seeing the Virgin in a tortilla?

 

[cyborg]

Is there a reproductive advantage or disadvantage to seeing the Virgin in a tortilla?

Don't forget neutrality...

 

[Mr. Scott]

Because the basis of the conversation hasn't been discussed in a rational or skeptical manner. You just jumped into talking about something, rather than explaining why your theory is even possible! It is like discussing "why did the ability to throw a Frisbee evolve?".

You make broad sweeping assumptions, and discuss stuff like it is just a known fact, rather than using logic and reason to defend your position, your conclusions, your though process. For example,

WTF? Where did that come from? What does it even mean?

See? What the hell kind of reasoning is that? You assume that a huge, complex set of behaviors is something simple, "evaluates threats to her offspring", becomes a genetic trait, and somehow is passed on by DNA, which is absurd. "Ergo Confirmation Bias should be selected against." WTF? How can you make such a huge leap of faith like that? Suddenly a vast range of behaviors, including learned behaviors, becomes a genetic trait. In what Universe is this considered reality?

What? Do you have any idea of what you are talking about? I mean, really?

Again, instead of adding substance to the conversation, you offer cracks like WTF and "Do you have any idea of what you are talking about?" A thousand repetitions of "WTF?" do nothing to refute my point.

robinson, you haven't provided a shred of evidence that this is the worst topic ever. A single worse topic disproves your assertion.

My conclusion about confirmation bias producing addictive pleasure is my synthesis of information from many sources, including decades of reading about how the brain works, chemical addictions, behaviorism, sociobiology, and personal observation.

I ask readers to consider the implications of this statement from the report on Dr. Westen's study:

partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones

To me, that has every earmark of a process that can lead to addiction. It's quite a leap to go from A) there's no specific study confirming confirmation bias addiction; to B) worst topic ever.

I'm fine with the comment that the OP has a loaded question. I knew it was loaded before I posted it. Loaded questions stimulate conversation.

Closing zinger:
I suppose you've made up your mind, robinson, that this is the "worst topic ever" and no evidence to the contrary will make any difference. Everyone's entitled to their addictions. Type WTF all you want if that's what gives you pleasure.

 

[robinson]

I was joking about the topic. It was a play on a popular TV show, The Simpsons. In which the Comic Book Guy says, "Worst episode ever".

Humor doesn't translate well to this medium, because you can't hear it being said in the Comic book Guys voice. You might also not be familiar with the show, meaning those three words might seem harsh, mean, terrible. I assure you, if I really thought it was the worst topic ever, I wouldn't post in it. There are many many more topics that suck, on a level that this topic will never be able to achieve.

Bias is an incredibly interesting subject. I would say bias is almost impossible to recognize in myself. Without input from others, especially skeptical, rational people, I wouldn't be aware of my own bias. And even when it seems I am suffering from bias, it is hard to get past it.

Is this a biological trait? Is it hard wired, soft wired, is it passed on in the genes? Can it be bred for? Bred out? If we assume it is a genetic trait, then of course we get to sidestep all the hard work of investigating if this is true or not, and simply start discussing something that may, or may not, exist.

Which might be a form of confirmation bias. Instead of looking for evidence, we start interpreting evidence based on our belief, which is called pseudoscience. Instead of a theory, we have a conclusion. Instead of looking at evidence that might disprove an idea, we are talking about some process of evolution, inherited complex brain functions, how did this occur? How is this beneficial? How did this get selected for? All kinds of interesting questions.

Without even having to show evidence that what we are discussing even exists. Yes we have an MRI study showing Political views are not rational, but emotional. That the test subjects used parts of their brain we associate with emotion, morals, conflict resolution, not logical reasoning. When dealing with Political figures, and statements they made. Which in my experience is like expecting a Catholic to use reason when they listen to the Pope speak.

Is this confirmation bias? From Wiki, "In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret new information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions and avoid information and interpretations which contradict prior beliefs."

I call it human nature. It was obvious to Plato and Socrates, based on ancient writings. Is it a survival trait? Is it a genetic thing? Or is it the way cultures bring up children? Is it the influence of religion? Does this "trait" or "tendency" work in all perceptions? In all our decisions? Or is it only involved when there is an emotional charge, a vested interest?

Do our beliefs matter when it comes down to reality? Let me just assume that CB is a gentic issue, that it "evolved". (Just because, this way I can give you my cool theory, which I just made up).

How did this happen? How did ignoring the facts about people become an advantage? How did it get passed on, when rational, honest, open minded traits did not?

Hmmm.... let me just look into the distant past ....