1. H
as a colleague ever
offered their views of a
service user in a case
handover? During multi-
agency meetings, are
your opinions shaped by
the appraisals of others? Could advance
information sharing be detrimental to our
objectivity?
The Greek philosopher and scientist
Aristotle is renowned for being a careful,
neutral, empirical scholar, yet some
commentators have criticised his methods.
For example, he’s been accused of selective
use of data and being prepared only to accept
information that reinforced his beliefs.
This is known as confirmation bias – a
psychological phenomenon that explains why
people tend to seek out information that
confirms their existing opinions, while
overlooking, or ignoring, information that
refutes their beliefs.
It is a systematic bias that works
relentlessly, and often subtly, to direct us
towards a desired or pre-existing conclusion.
It can give us a false sense of confidence in
our conclusions because we believe we are
following the available evidence and making
judgments based upon this, when in fact we
are leading the evidence.
Most people think they behave rationally.
However, we are all susceptible to limitations
in thinking, judgement and decision-making,
and for the most part, we are completely
unaware of it. Confirmation bias stems from
several areas of cognition including memory,
perception, feelings and the misapplication of
reasoning.
Where do these biases come from? At
some point in our evolutionary history, biases
were useful responses, helping us to make
decisions with limited information. These
became heuristics – rule of thumb
approaches to problem solving, learning, or
discovery that employ a practical
methodology, not guaranteed to be optimal or
perfect, but sufficient for the immediate goal.
This might be useful if your only task for the
day is survival, and the speed of the decision
is more important than accuracy; If you think
you are going to get eaten by a predator, it is
better to act quickly rather than enter into a
thorough analysis of the situation.
However, in today’s complex world the
opposite is often true. Nowadays in most
cases it is better to be accurate than fast in
our decision-making. Now we need to do
more than just survive, rushed decision-
making can get us into trouble.
SO HOW
BIASED
AREYOU?
Even the great
philosopher Aristotle is
accused of selective use
of data to confirm his
views. Alex Clapson
says it’s vital social
workers honestly examine
their own prejudices to
ensure they make the
best decisions

2. the same restaurant, leisure or entertainment
venue, holiday destination? It’s good to stick
with what we know, isn’t it?
But this approach makes it difficult to let go
of entrenched positions and can prevent us
from seeing something totally new or
important that might shift our perspective.
Humans tend to be heavily influenced by
the first piece of information offered when
making decisions – this is the anchor. Sales
and marketing people know all about this as
they try to manipulate your purchasing
choices. Subsequent choices are made by
adjusting away from the initial anchor
position. Raising our awareness of this
tendency can help us to recognise when this
might be getting in the way of impartiality or
openness to new ideas and information in our
social work practice.
Consider this simple scenario: you attend a
case conference and meet professionals from
other agencies for the first time, only to
discover that everyone else is wearing
business attire while you’re wearing casuals.
On top of this, they observe a stain on your
shirt or on your dress. They may conclude
that your outward appearance indicates a
sloppy approach to your work and therefore
pay less heed to your contributions. They will
look for evidence in your behaviour and
communication that will reinforce their first
impressions of you.
On the other hand, if the people that you
meet see that you are well groomed, dressed
appropriately, and exude confidence, they are
more likely to listen to your viewpoint.
Our brains are great at sifting out patterns
in the available data, and at making meaning
to help us interpret the world. However, we
are also experts at retrofitting information to
support our hypotheses. Once we learn about
confirmation bias, it’s easy to see it in others,
but more challenging to recognise it in
ourselves.
These biases impact upon our ability to
practice. They lead us to miss opportunities to
view situations from other perspectives and
If you’ve recently changed your car, or are
considering doing so, then you might
recognise the following phenomena: a friend
recommends a particular model or
manufacturer to you. You then spend the
evening reading up about it and browsing
pictures. You’ve now got an idea of the look
and style of your chosen car. The following
day driving to work, you see not one, but two,
three, four, or five of the same model car
travelling the other way.
Who’d have thought there would be so
many of these vehicles on the road at the
same time? Of course, they were on the road
the day before and the day before that and so
on, but you didn’t see them. Why might that
be? Because yesterday you weren’t looking
for them, they were just pieces of data
whizzing by. But today they are relevant and
interesting to you, so you take notice of them.
Imagine presenting evidence in court and
the service user’s attorney commences a
series of questions to examine the
perspective from which you made your
assessment of their client. Might they
reasonably ask what efforts were made to
explore the more positive aspects of their
client’s case in addition to the negative
features?
Because confirmation bias compels us to
ignore data that goes against our first
impressions, we’re extremely sensitive to
signs or indicators that support our initial take
on situations. If we are looking for bad
behaviour, we will find it. Conversely, if we
look for positive traits, invariably we will find
they are present too.
We are hard-wired to defend our
suppositions. The tendency to over-simplify is
deep grained in the human psyche. Why
might we do this when our training has taught
us to tease out the truth, to examine all sides
of an argument, to walk a few paces in
another’s shoes, and to empathise from their
viewpoint?
We like things that align with our view of the
world and we like people who are like us and
share our interests to the extent that we
search out things that agree with us, whilst
ignoring conflicting information. We know it is
possible for two people to interpret the same
information differently depending on their
world-view – fitting the terrain to the map
rather than the other way around.
It is a short circuit way to stay away from
things that may cause us harm. After all, if
things are similar to things we already know
and like then they are probably okay, right?
How many of us return over and over again to
therefore create flawed assessments.
Confirmation bias can be used to your
advantage and the advantage of those whom
you advocate for. For example, the knowledge
that people’s views can be easily shaped,
particularly by first impressions, might
heighten your awareness of the importance of
focusing upon your early interactions with
them, taking more time to consider the
outcome you’re looking for and to plan the
method and nature of your interventions.
So, now we know a little more about
confirmation bias, are we less likely to be
drawn in by fixed or limited amounts of
information? Well, not necessarily. Knowing
about the phenomena does not mean that
you will be able to spot it all the time, but it
does help.
One effective method in tackling potential
biases is called the reverse brainstorm: If an
accurate, thorough assessment is required in
one of your cases, then ask yourself the
question, “What do I need to do to ensure
that my assessment is completely inaccurate,
flawed and biased?”
A detailed response to this question will
help you to explicitly call out the pitfalls to
ensure that you are not being misled in your
information gathering towards your
assessment. Numerous Serious Case
Reviews have highlighted the need for social
workers to ask the awkward questions and
always be thinking the unthinkable.
Don’t rush – when we are under time
pressures to make decisions, we are more
likely to suppress the available evidence and
fall back into our biases. Ensuring we have
time to consider and test our viewpoints will
help to reduce the impact of unconscious
biases. Asking another professional to read
our assessments and challenge our thinking
can provide us with this opportunity.
We see new situations with the biases of
past experiences. Only when we are open to
viewpoints that do not fit our mental models
can we make room for new learning and more
effective practice. In order to test our
suppositions, and challenge our assessments,
we must take account of all the available
evidence and differing perspectives to see if
they stand-up. Practicing in this way will help
to continually improve our practice, and
create a culture of making assessments
robust enough to withstand the rigours of
cross-examination.
feature
We like things that align
with our view of the world
and we like people who
are like us and share our
interests
Alex Clapson is is a freelance trainer, facilitator,
consultant, coach and independent social worker
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