How Does Confirmation Bias Influence Depression?

Let's imagine the following situation: a mother does the shopping in the supermarket, pays at the register, and when she already loaded everything in the car... she observes that a small package of chocolate. That's when she remembers that the boy was playing in the candy gondola that these were little planes. Since her son is a very good boy, she interprets that she “must have stayed in his pocket”, without even considering the possibility that the boy stole the chocolate.

Sometimes our preconceived ideas cloud our reasoning about the facts of reality: although the evidence demonstrate that the child has most likely committed a mischief, the mother's idea of ​​her child makes it impossible for her to conceive it. This phenomenon is a cognitive bias, specifically a confirmation bias that affects the way the mother “reads” the world (more on this later).

This is a simple example in which, if this biased belief about her son persists, the mother's mental health would not be affected too much. However, what would happen if these distorted beliefs were focused on our worth as people? And if the facts of reality could not put them into question? From many cognitive-behavioral approaches, some cognitive distortions can operate as supporters of disorders such as

depression. Next, we will see what confirmation bias is and how it can influence depression.

• Related article: "Types of depression: its symptoms, causes and characteristics"

What are cognitive biases?

To delve into the subject, it is necessary to clarify what cognitive biases or distortions are. We understand by them 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 have allowed decisions to be made more agile and faster. Their downside is that they are difficult to contradict, and being distorted can counterproductively cloud our vision of objective facts.

What is confirmation bias?

There are many cognitive biases, and one of them is the confirmation bias. He himself refers to the tendency to interpret information in such a way that it confirms our pre-existing beliefs. In other words, it follows the logic that the person wants to believe what he already believed before; like the mother who, despite the mischief of her son, interpreted that fact based on what she always believed: "my son is a good boy."

It is an obfuscated interpretation, since the person selectively remembers previous events to support his belief, collect details favorable to his hypothesis, or ignore information that conflicts with his ideas to follow them supporting.

• You may be interested in: "Confirmation bias: when we only see what we want to see"

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 frequent in depression, such as decreased pleasure in activities that the person used to enjoy; a state of mind characterized by feeling sad or empty, lack or excess of sleep, fatigue or loss of energy, among others.

Another common symptom is daily experiencing feelings of worthlessness or excessive and inappropriate guilt, which may be accompanied by self-reproach 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 underlying these statements is a belief about the experiences of the world and about themselves that classify the events as negative, so the person will have those "glasses" on to make sense of reality and hardly see anything else in she. In addition, people tend to associate certain categories more easily than with others —an idea linked to the concept of cognitive schemes—, so the depressed person, by making use of some distorted beliefs to face reality, she could quickly interpret his experiences as negative and associate them with herself, triggering pejorative thoughts about yes. 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 "nobody 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 the confirmation bias at its best, since in order to reach the conclusion of that "nobody cares about me", the man could omit details such as the fact that on more than one occasion he was invited 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.

In addition, another key point to consider about beliefs is that they persist even after gathering evidence capable of refuting them. This has been empirically tested by different research teams, which seem to support the idea that beliefs can persevere with surprising integrity even when the hard facts seem capable of devastating them. Many times, they even make the most solid beliefs.

One study set out to test this with two groups, one made up of people in favor of the death penalty and one made up of people against it. Each group was presented with two investigations, one that supported their point of view and one that contradicted it. The results were that people not only rated the study they agreed with as more convincing and better done, but also further polarized his position on the issue.

Now, if we transfer these findings to the level of confirmation bias in depression, we can see how problematic it can be for a person to tend to interpret the world in order to confirm their own beliefs, considering that it tends to underestimate their abilities or worth as a person beyond what experience shows. For this reason, contacting a mental health professional is a first big step to take to acquire tools with which to respond to these difficulties.