Biases are predispositions of a psychological, sociological and physiological nature that can influence decision-making. We may acknowledge their existence, and yet we often believe that we are not prone to bias; in itself this is a type of bias – ‘overconfidence’.
We are forced to establish beliefs about the world, our lives, the economy, investments, and our careers among others. We deal mostly in assumptions, and the more indistinct these are, the stronger the confirmation bias. The ‘confirmation bias’ is the mother of all misconceptions: It reflects our tendency to interpret new information so that it becomes compatible with our existing theories, beliefs and convictions.