Myside Bias
The tendency to evaluate evidence, generate arguments, and test hypotheses in a way biased toward one's own prior opinions and beliefs.
Also known as: My-Side Bias, Belief Bias, Own-Position Bias
Category: Cognitive Biases
Tags: cognitive-biases, thinking, epistemology, psychology, critical-thinking
Explanation
Myside bias is the tendency to process information in a way that favors your existing beliefs, opinions, and attitudes. Coined and extensively studied by psychologist Keith Stanovich, it describes how people systematically generate more arguments supporting their own position, apply stricter scrutiny to opposing evidence, and design weaker tests of hypotheses they favor.
**How Myside Bias Differs from Confirmation Bias**:
While often conflated, myside bias and confirmation bias are related but distinct:
| Confirmation Bias | Myside Bias |
|---|---|
| Seeking confirming evidence | Evaluating any evidence through a self-serving lens |
| About information search | About information processing |
| Looking for what supports you | Generating arguments that support you |
| Can be reduced by forcing exposure to counterevidence | Persists even when exposed to balanced evidence |
Myside bias is broader: even when people encounter strong opposing evidence, they process it differently than supporting evidence — finding more flaws, applying more skepticism, and spending less cognitive effort understanding it.
**Stanovich's Key Finding**:
Perhaps the most striking finding in Stanovich's research is that myside bias is **largely independent of intelligence**. Unlike many cognitive biases that correlate negatively with IQ (smarter people show less bias), myside bias shows almost no correlation with cognitive ability. Highly intelligent people are just as prone to arguing their own side as anyone else — they simply construct more sophisticated arguments.
This means you cannot think your way out of myside bias through raw intelligence. It requires *disposition* — specifically, the active desire to consider opposing viewpoints — which is a separate trait from intelligence.
**Where Myside Bias Appears**:
- **Argument generation**: Asked to list arguments on an issue, people generate 2-3x more arguments for their own side
- **Evidence evaluation**: People apply higher standards of evidence to claims they disagree with
- **Hypothesis testing**: People design tests more likely to confirm their preferred hypothesis
- **Memory**: People recall evidence supporting their position more easily than opposing evidence
- **Interpretation**: Ambiguous information is interpreted as supporting one's existing view
**Why It Matters**:
- It undermines the assumption that exposure to information leads to better beliefs
- It explains why debates rarely change minds — both sides process the same evidence differently
- It means that intelligence alone is not a safeguard against biased reasoning
- It highlights the importance of intellectual virtues (honesty, humility) over raw cognitive ability
**Countermeasures**:
- **Actively argue the other side**: Force yourself to construct the best possible opposing argument before concluding
- **Consider the opposite**: Explicitly ask 'What if I'm wrong?' and take the question seriously
- **Steelmanning**: Engage with the strongest version of opposing views
- **Pre-commitment**: Decide your evidence standards before seeing the evidence
- **Seek out disagreement**: Regularly engage with people and sources that challenge your views
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