Confirmation Bias

Submitted By wends71
Words: 483
Pages: 2

One source of bias that could affect our deliberations is confirmation bias. This is the tendency to look for information that reaffirms past choices and to neglect information that is inconsistent with past judgements (Robbins, Judge, Millet & Boyle, 2011, p.48). For instance, rumours of Kevin’s “rather chaotic” management style and tendency to “blame individual team members when things go wrong” may impinge on our decision, encouraging us to look for information that reaffirms an initial impression of Kevin perhaps being a poor leader and not a team player, while ignoring other information that suggests different. On the other hand, “universally positive” rumours of Julia’s management style and high team morale may encourage us to seek out information that supports this concept of Julia being a strong leader and a team player, while discounting any comments that may hint to otherwise. In this particular illustration, we could be biased to choose Julia over Kevin, as is supported by Landy & Conty (2007), who asserts that interviewers may “over-focus on positive or negative attributes that support initial impressions”.

Another source of bias that may impinge on our decision is overconfidence bias. That is, the ““tendency to overestimate the probability that one’s judgment in arriving at a decision is correct” (Robbins, et al., 2011, p.46). This type of bias is not one in which we place on candidates, but rather a bias that is brought into the interview room with the candidate themselves. Thus we must be wary of such tactics, described by Huffcutt (2010) as “self-promotion” in which interviewees “overstate accomplishments”. An example of this could be an exaggerated description of Julia’s managerial skills or Kevin’s customer relationships. As suggested by Robbins, et al. (2011), performance and ability are more likely to be overestimated when individuals whose intellectual and interpersonal skills are weakest and therefore we must also