Let’s imagine the following situation: a mother makes purchases at the supermarket, pays at the checkout, and when she has loaded everything into the car… she notices that a small package of chocolate is peeking out of her son’s pocket. That’s when she remembers that the boy was playing in the candy aisle that they were little airplanes. Since her son is a very good child, she interprets that she “must have left it in his pocket,” without even considering the possibility that the child may have stolen the chocolate.
Sometimes, our preconceived ideas cloud our reasoning around the facts of reality: although the evidence shows that the child has most likely committed a mischief, the idea that the mother has of her child makes it impossible for her to conceive him. This phenomenon is a cognitive bias, specifically, a confirmation bias that affects the way the mother “reads” the world (we will return to this later).
This is a simple example in which, if this biased belief about her child persists, the mother’s mental health would not be greatly affected. However, what if these distorted beliefs were focused on our worth as people? What if the facts of reality could not call them into question? From many cognitive-behavioral approaches, some cognitive distortions can operate to support disorders such as depression. Next, We will see what confirmation bias is and how it can influence depression.
To delve deeper into the topic, it is necessary to clarify what cognitive biases or distortions are. We understand them to be the erroneous or blurred interpretations of the world and of ourselves that affect the way we process information. They interfere with the judgments we make, how we think, what we remember, what we believe.
At an evolutionary level, these biases have been useful insofar as they allowed decisions to be made more agile and faster. Their counterpart is that they are difficult to contradict, and when distorted they can cloud our vision of objective facts in a counterproductive way.
What is confirmation bias?
There are many cognitive biases, and one of them is confirmation bias. The same refers to the tendency to interpret information in a way that confirms our preexisting beliefs. In other words, it follows the logic that the person wants to believe in what he already believed previously; like the mother who, despite her son’s mischief, interpreted that fact based on what she always believed: “my son is a good child.”
It is an obfuscated interpretation, since the person selectively remembers previous events to support his belief, collects details favorable to his hypotheses, or ignores information that conflicts with his ideas to continue supporting them.
The influence of confirmation bias on depression
And how can this distortion affect disorders such as depression? Well, we know that a series of symptoms are common in depression, such as decreased pleasure in activities that the person used to enjoy; a mood characterized by feeling sad or empty, lack or excess of sleep, fatigue or loss of energy, among others.
Another common symptom is experiencing feelings of worthlessness or excessive and inappropriate guilt on a daily basis which may be accompanied by self-reproaches or thoughts such as “I do everything wrong”, “I will always be useless” or “I am a burden to others”, even when the circumstance does not warrant it.
The point is that these statements are underpinned by a belief about the experiences of the world and about themselves that classify events as negative, so the person will have those “glasses” on to make sense of reality and will hardly see anything else. in her. Furthermore, people tend to associate certain categories more easily than with others—an idea linked to the concept of cognitive schemas—so the depressed person, by using some distorted beliefs to face reality, could quickly interpret their experiences as negative thoughts and associate them with herself, triggering pejorative thoughts about herself. For example, if the father of a man with depression went for a walk with his brother, he might think that he was not invited because “no one cares about me”; although it is most likely that it was a spontaneous walk that had little to do with him.
In line with this situation, it illustrates confirmation bias in its maximum splendor, since to reach the conclusion that “no one cares about me,” the man could omit details such as the fact that on more than one occasion They invited him for a walk. He could also selectively interpret the information, for example, coming to the conclusion that they both go for a walk in the afternoons since, at that time, he is working. The experience seems to conform to the person’s pre-existing beliefs and in the case of depression, these are linked to a negative self-concept.
Furthermore, another key point to consider about beliefs is that they persist even after gathering evidence capable of refuting them. This has been tested empirically by different research teams, which seem to support the idea that beliefs can persevere with surprising integrity even when concrete data seems capable of devastating them. Many times, they even make beliefs stronger.
One study set out to test this with two groups, one made up of people in favor of the death penalty and the other made up of people against it. Each group was presented with two pieces of research, one that supported their point of view and one that contradicted it. The results were that people not only rated the study with which they agreed as more convincing and better conducted, but they also polarized their position on the issue even more.
Now, if we transfer these findings to the level of confirmation bias in depression, we can see how problematic it can be that a person tends to interpret the world in order to confirm their own beliefs, considering that they tend to undervalue their abilities or worth. as a person beyond what experience demonstrates. For this reason, contacting a mental health professional is a great first step to take to acquire tools with which to respond to these difficulties.
