Reputation The fact that people exhibit confirmation bias makes it very important to manage your reputation – whether you are a stu dent, professor, doctor, lawyer, or brand. Why?

Scientists, by the way, are not immune from confirmation bias. Philosopher of science Karl Popper noted how some scientists find data supporting their theories everywhere. He describes his encounter with Alfred Adler, the pio neering psychoanalyst. In Popper’s words:

Once, in 1919, I reported to him a case which to me did not seem particularly Adlerian, but which he found no difficulty in analysing in terms of his theory of inferiority feelings, although he had not even seen the child. Slightly shocked, I asked him how he could be so sure. “Because of my thousandfold experience,” he replied; whereupon I could not help saying: “And with this new case, I suppose, your experience has become thousand-and-one-fold.”

Popper’s description makes it sound as though Adler is suffering confirmation bias in a big way. Sadly, it is easy to find similar examples in economics. Because of how easy it is to “confirm” just about any theory, Popper ended up arguing that the hallmark of a scientific theory was not the fact that it could be confirmed, but rather that it could at least in principle be falsified – shown to be false by empirical observation. A good question to ask yourself and others is: “What sort of evidence would make you change your mind?” If you cannot think of anything short of divine intervention, you are almost surely suffering confirmation bias