What we want to see versus what we expect to see

Uncovering the truth can be a tricky thing to do. Not only do you have to figure out who to trust and which sources to believe, but our own brains can often conspire against us.

According to Adam Grant in his book “Think Again“, we have two biases that tend to drive poor judgement:

Confirmation Bias, where we see what we expect to see. If there are two viewpoints out there, and one is what we expected, then we’ll focus on that and ignore the other.

Desirability Bias, where we see what we want to see. If I want to believe that my sports team will win the championship this year, I’ll likely seek out sources to validate my views. For sports, that can be a fun way to approach things. If you get into more important parts of life, like politics or vaccinations, this approach can lead to poor reasoning.

This isn’t to attack one side or the other. Taking the example of vaccines, if you believe they’re beneficial, you’ll seek out sources that match your biases listed above. If you feel they’re not beneficial, the same biases will affect your judgement.

The solution is simply to be aware of these kinds of biases and consciously fight against them. Try to see both sides of every situation, work hard to avoid building an echo chamber, and do what you can to not slip into biases like these.