Checking whether you only collect agreeable information
- Author
- CRYPTO PORT Editorial
- Published
- Updated
- Reading time
- 5 min
In short
People are known to gather information that supports what they already think and to discount what contradicts it. Collecting more of it while collecting it selectively only increases conviction. This page describes the tendency; it recommends no particular conclusion.
Key points
- More information does not improve a judgement if the gathering is skewed
- Reading opposing views while hunting for flaws just reinforces the original view
- Check the position of your sources — are they all people who benefit from the view?
- The aim is to notice it, not to be told what to conclude
Definition
The tendency to seek out information supporting a view you already hold, while discounting information against it.
Once an asset or service interests you, you start researching it — and the words you search, the pages you open and the articles you finish are all shaped by the view you already hold. Favourable pieces are read through with agreement; unfavourable ones get closed halfway with 'this author doesn't understand it'. None of this is deliberate, yet what accumulates leans one way.
The awkward part is that this still produces the feeling of having done the work. You genuinely read a lot and spent real time. But if everything you read argued in the same direction, what grew was conviction, not evidence. Becoming more certain the more you research is not necessarily a good sign.
Checking the position of your sources gives you something concrete to work with. Does the person or organisation stand to gain if this thing spreads? Is there a referral arrangement or a holding behind it? Is any of that disclosed? Interested sources are not automatically bad, but reading them without knowing their interest means mistaking the force of an argument for the strength of its evidence.
The usual suggested response is to read the opposing case for its content rather than for its flaws. This page, though, points to no conclusion you should reach. Being able to tell whether your view came through information pointing several ways or through a stack of information pointing one way — that is as far as it goes.
Watch out for
- · This is not investment advice and recommends no conclusion or asset
- · Understanding a cognitive tendency does not prevent losses
- · A source having an interest is not itself improper, but the reader needs to know about it
Frequently asked questions
Does reading the other side remove the bias?
Reading alone is often not enough; taken as something to rebut, an opposing view can strengthen the original position instead. Whether you actually took it in is something only you can check.