Confirmation Bias: Workplace Consequences Part II

As we've seen, confirmation bias causes us to seek confirmation of our preconceptions, while we avoid contradictions to them, always outside our awareness. Last time, we explored the effects of confirmation bias on thought processes. Let's now explore its affects on management processes. Here are four ways people use confirmation bias to reinforce their preconceptions about managing.

The Pygmalion Effect

In the Pygmalion Effect [Livingston 1991], managers' expectations influence how they see employee performance, which influences employees' performance itself. This transcends confirmation bias, which applies only to the owner of the preconceptions.

But employee performance is rarely deficient in every way. Although it might be substandard, it almost certainly has some bright spots. But managers with negative preconceptions tend to undervalue those bright spots, and overvalue problematic performance factors. Thus, confirmation bias provides a foundation for the Pygmalion Effect by hardening the manager's preconceptions. In extreme cases, it might even be the precipitating cause of the entire incident.

Lock-in

Lock-in is a pattern of dysfunction that appears in decision-making when an individual or group escalates its commitment to a low-quality prior decision, often in spite of the availability of superior alternatives. Lock-in can be a symptom of confirmation bias, because it helps the decision-maker resist information or ideas that call preconceptions into question.

To some extent, educating decision-makers about the role of confirmation bias in lock-in can help control lock-in. But this tactic is relatively ineffective once lock-in happens, because the educator can appear to be furthering an agenda of opposition to the prior decision.

The backfire effect

When we correct misstatements made by others, their beliefs in their misstatements sometimes intensify. The attempt to correct backfires.

When this happens, it's often caused by confirmation bias, as the people corrected try to preserve their preconceptions.

Aversion or resistance to reviews, inspections, and dry runs

Structured defect discovery activities are intended to improve the quality of work products by uncovering defects. The experience of having one's work inspected can therefore be painful to those who want to believe that their work is flawless, or if not flawless, better than it actually is. That's why resistance to structured defect discovery activities is often little more than a manifestation of the dynamics of confirmation bias.

The most straightforward At times, confirmation bias tends
to reinforce our preconceptions
about managing and about the
people we manageform of resistance is direct opposition. People might complain about the activity's effectiveness, or about the burden it places on busy people, or about the return on investment. But there are more subtle forms of resistance, too. For instance, some might withhold discovery of defects in one team's work product to return an earlier favor from others, or to incur a debt to be repaid later. Like lock-in, training in confirmation bias and its effects provides perhaps the best chance of controlling aversion to structured defect discovery activities.

If you doubt that confirmation bias affects your own management processes, examine your doubts for signs of confirmation bias. First in this series   Top    Next Issue

Are your projects always (or almost always) late and over budget? Are your project teams plagued by turnover, burnout, and high defect rates? Turn your culture around. Read 52 Tips for Leaders of Project-Oriented Organizations, filled with tips and techniques for organizational leaders. Order Now!

For more on the Pygmalion effect, see "Pygmalion Side Effects: Bowling a Strike," Point Lookout for November 21, 2001. For more about the lock-in, see "Indicators of Lock-In: I," Point Lookout for March 23, 2011.

Footnotes

Your comments are welcome

About Point Lookout

Thank you for reading this article. I hope you enjoyed it and found it useful, and that you'll consider recommending it to a friend.

Point Lookout is a free weekly email newsletter. Browse the archive of past issues. Subscribe for free.

Support Point Lookout by joining the Friends of Point Lookout, as an individual or as an organization.

Do you face a complex interpersonal situation? Send it in, anonymously if you like, and I'll give you my two cents.

Related articles

More articles on Emotions at Work:

Dealing with Your Own Anger

However perceptive we become about what can anger us, we still do get angry once in a while. Here are four steps to help you deal with your own anger.

One Cost of Split Assignments

Sometimes management practices have unintended consequences. To reduce costs, we keep staff ranks thin, but that leads to split assignments for those with rare skills. Here's one way split assignments can lead to higher costs.

Some Subtleties of ad hominem Attacks

Groups sometimes make mistakes based on faulty reasoning used in their debates. One source of faulty reasoning is the ad hominem attack. Here are some insights that help groups recognize and avoid this class of errors.

Scope Creep, Hot Hands, and the Illusion of Control

Despite our awareness of scope creep's dangerous effects on projects and other efforts, we seem unable to prevent it. Two cognitive biases — the "hot hand fallacy" and "the illusion of control" — might provide explanations.

Help for Finding Help

When we find ourselves at a loss for finding a good path forward, and we feel overwhelmed by events, support can make things easier. But seeking support is difficult for some. Why is that?

See also Emotions at Work, Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness and Cognitive Biases at Work for more related articles.

Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout

Coming April 1: Incompetence: Traps and Snares

Sometimes people judge as incompetent colleagues who are unprepared to carry out their responsibilities. Some of these "incompetents" are trapped or ensnared in incompetence, unable to acquire the ability to do their jobs. Available here and by RSS on April 1.

And on April 8: Intentionally Misreporting Status: I

When we report the status of the work we do, we sometimes confront the temptation to embellish the good news or soften the bad news. How can we best deal with these obstacles to reporting status with integrity? Available here and by RSS on April 8.

Coaching services

I offer email and telephone coaching at both corporate and individual rates. Contact Rick for details at rbrenmhXARWRMUvVyOdHlner@ChacxgDmtwOKrxnripPCoCanyon.com or (650) 787-6475, or toll-free in the continental US at (866) 378-5470.

Get the ebook!

Past issues of Point Lookout are available in six ebooks:

• Get 2001-2 in Geese Don't Land on Twigs (PDF, )
• Get 2003-4 in Why Dogs Wag (PDF, )
• Get 2005-6 in Loopy Things We Do (PDF, )
• Get 2007-8 in Things We Believe That Maybe Aren't So True (PDF, )
• Get 2009-10 in The Questions Not Asked (PDF, )
• Get all of the first twelve years (2001-2012) in The Collected Issues of Point Lookout (PDF, )

Are you a writer, editor or publisher on deadline? Are you looking for an article that will get people talking and get compliments flying your way? You can have 500 words in your inbox in one hour. License any article from this Web site. More info

Public seminars

The Power Affect: How We Express Our Personal Power

Many people who possess real organizational power have a characteristic demeanor. It's the way they project their presence. I call this the power affect. Some people — call them power pretenders — adopt the power affect well before they attain significant organizational power. Unfortunately for their colleagues, and for their organizations, power pretenders can attain organizational power out of proportion to their merit or abilities. Understanding the power affect is therefore important for anyone who aims to attain power, or anyone who works with power pretenders. Read more about this program.

• A recording of a program presented June 29, 2017, Monthly Webinar, sponsored by Technobility Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.