Broken Headlights and Confirmation Bias

Have you had a broken headlight and suddenly, you begin to notice all the other cars with with one headlight? Technically, that is known as the frequency illusion, or the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. It’s a combination of selective attention bias and confirmation bias. We all want to make sense of our world and we find the things that are similar to us or our frame of reference and use that as confirmation. To what extent is this not in your best interest?

Social Media algorithms do just this with your content, which is useful for “stickiness” user engagement, but maybe not so good for your sanity? When does seek and find distort your view of the world into a doom scroll? Think of it this way. On the highway, you can find cars with one headlight, yet and still, the majority of the cars have two headlights. Maybe this is the ratio of good things to bad?

You’re drawn to bad news. The brain prioritizes bad news for survival so it is natural to feel a sense of urgency and alarm, particularly with the news. Ignore the news and your environment, of course that is not reality. However, you do have awareness.

Watching a movie, you can become afraid and stressed or sad and weepy. The brain doesn’t differentiate. You may even find yourself thinking, it’s only a movie. Therefore, with awareness, you can navigate the bad news prioritization and understand the negativity bias at play. Just as a movie can also make you happy and laughing how can you break the bias in your brain?

As we move into a new year where many people adapt New Year’s resolutions, maybe there is simple one, find the good.