Something Wicked This Way Comes - The Bias Dilemma

Minority Report is a 2002 American neo-noir science fiction mystery-thriller directed by Steven Spielberg, loosely based on the short story by Philip K. Dick. In the film version of the story a specialized police department, "PreCrime", apprehends criminals based on foreknowledge of their criminal acts provided by three psychics called "precogs". What a lovely piece of science fiction.

Today I'm going to do something that "<insert name>" warned against; I'm going to act like a precog and make a prediction. (given the patchy evidence for who first said what follows you can fill in whomever you think; I will go with Bohr as I've always found him interesting).

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future.

If you don't live in the UK you may not know that we are having a general election on 7th May 2015. Oh what fun we will have to be sure! Tonight on ITV (independent television network) we are having a debate with the main parties involved in the election and apparently the party leaders are preparing for a head-to-head debate showdown.

We have done this before in the UK, last time the leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg put on a great performance and according to Paddy Ashdown (former Liberal Democrat leader) this "changed election dynamic". Given that I'm not sure what dynamic means in this context I can't really argue whether or not this prediction was correct. Ultimately however, Clegg's performance had no real impact on the election result with his party, in fact, loosing ground on the big 2 (Labour and the Conservatives).

What has all this got to do with business? I'd like to suggest that it's all about how we make good decisions.

The title of this article comes a fantasy novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes" by Ray Bradbury who in turn lifted the idea from a quote in Shakespeare's Macbeth. Bradbury's story concerns two 13-year-old friends and their nightmarish experience with a travelling circus when it comes to their town. The circus' leader, the mysterious "Mr. Dark", seemingly wields the power to grant people's secret desires. In reality, Dark is a malevolent being who lures these individuals into binding themselves in servitude to him. The novel combines elements of fantasy and horror; whilst analysing the conflicting natures of good and evil which exist within all individuals. This is where we get to my prediction for this evening's "debate" (and more general concern with anyone looking to make good decisions).

Very few people will change their minds as a result of the debate, in fact, within minutes of the debate finishing there will be claims of victory from supporters of all the parties involved.

This will happen as Bradbury suggested thanks to the conflicting natures of good and evil which exist within all individuals or as the psychologists call it, "Confirmation Bias".

Wikipedia provides an excellent definition:

Confirmation bias is....the tendency to search for, interpret, or recall information in a way that confirms one's beliefs or hypotheses. It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning. People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position.

Tonight we will hear all of the leaders using "confirmation hooks" such as; food-banks, bankers, socialists, posh, elite, immigration, the NHS, independence, fairness etc. Most of these hooks, I will also predict, will be set within the context of anecdotal evidence such as "...on the streets people are telling me..." "...I visited a school this morning and they left me with one message..." etc.

The content of the debate will not matter a jot to most people. Supporters and detractors of a particular party will cherry pick from the debate what they want to hear.

Unfortunately some of the cherry pickers (also known as internet trolls) will be posting on the internet about those nasty people doing nasty things, all but for the one they support of course; they will have won the debate hands down. This is a growing trend and the recent trolling experienced by the BBC's Nick Robinson provides a horrid example of confirmation bias at its evil worst.

The consequences of confirmation bias have the potential to become very serious. It is increasingly unlikely that you will hear a political (or a business executive) stand back and say, "you know what, the chap from the other side (function etc.) has presented a good case, I'm going to change my mind"; something else I predict will not happen tonight (although it's pretty lame to predict something wont happen. I also predict Cameron wont say "Vote Labour I'm a just clueless posh boy").

This situation has been made worse in the political sphere by the apparent reduction in cross party working in the House of Commons (and in the US state department) where once our politicians met in "smoked filled rooms" and argued the toss they are now increasingly paranoid about being seen with the "enemy" never mind engaging in debate with them.

So what is the undecided voter or the intelligent supporter to do to mitigate the impact of confirmation bias? Well firstly I'd take advice from what Walt Whitman wrote in his "Camden Conversations":

“I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open—always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a mistake—after a wrong guess.”

Secondly, seek out non-biased reporting, think tanks and writers. Also it is important to remember that it is much easier for most people to believe someone's story/experience/anecdote as opposed to understanding the complexity of an issue. Carefully studied (often scientific) measures are always more accurate than personal perceptions, we also tend to prefer to believe that which is tangible to us and/or the opinion of someone we trust over a more abstract statistical or complex reality.

I guess what I am suggesting is that we need more "evidence based politics" with individual biases kept to a minimum. Likewise, I'd suggest that evidenced based decision making should be a strategic objective/methodology in all of our organisations.

So armed with this understanding perhaps we can all be "precogs" (which is tough enough - see movie) at home and at work. Enjoy the debate.

Other reading
Your logical fallacy is
Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts

Sculpture Consulting was founded by Scott McArthur and his partner Samantha Barklam 4 years ago. Sculpture's aim is to inspire people to think differently about themselves and change. To meet the team and experience their methods please come along to Sculptures's first public event, The ZONE - the work you were born to do, which will be held on the 12th September 2015 in Stratford Upon Avon.