Chapter 7 talks about the idea of confirmation bias. Can you give a real-world business example of where confirmation bias is relevant. Have you seen this in your own experience?

Question

Chapter 7 talks about the idea of confirmation bias.  Can you give a real-world business example of where confirmation bias is relevant.  Have you seen this in your own experience?

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

The prompt asks for a real-world business example of confirmation bias and for you to relate it to your own experience. To craft a thoughtful response, first illustrate what confirmation bias is in a business context: the tendency to favor information that confirms preconceptions or hypotheses while discounting evidence that contradicts them.

Consider a concrete business scenario you might observe or have experienced. For example, a product team believes their new feature will be a hit with customers, so they selectively seek positive feedback from beta users, pay more attention to favorable reviews, and downplay or overlook neutral or negative data from other channels. When sales data after launch comes in, they emphasize metrics that support their belief (e.g., a few strong early adopters) and ignore early signals of broad-based disinterest, leading to an overhyped product decision and eventual misallocation of resources.

Another common instance: during a quarterly planning cycle, leadership expects that a particular market segment will grow, so market research is interpreted through that lens. They focus on data points that align with the forecast, discount anomalies, and deprioritize countervailing signals from the field or competitor moves. This can result in missed warnings and slow responsiveness.

You can also think of confirmation bias in hiring decisions: interviewers may favor candidates who resemble past successful hires, paying less attention to red flags or diverse skill sets, which can perpetuate a skewed team profile.

To structure your answer effectively, you could:
- Define confirmation bias in one or two sentences.
- Describe a specific business scenario with clear actors (e.g., product team, sales team, executives) and the decision at hand.
- Explain how the bias manifested (what information was sought, what was ignored, and why this happened).
- Discuss the consequences (e.g., wasted spend, flawed strategy, missed opportunities).
- Reflect on lessons learned and potential mitigation strategies (e.g., pre-mortems, devil’s advocate roles, structured decision protocols, blind data reviews).

In your own experience, recall a moment where you recognized you or your team favored confirming data over contradictory evidence. Describe the situation briefly, what you did to address it, and what you would do differently next time to mitigate confirmation bias.

If you’re unsure how to start, you can frame your essay around a real-world example you’ve observed in a company you’ve worked with, a case from a public company’s decision-making controversy, or a hypothetical but plausible business scenario, and then connect it to the general concept of confirmation bias and its impacts on business outcomes.

SP25 RMI 660 001 Engaged Learning 33: Confirmation Bias

Chapter 7 talks about the idea of confirmation bias. Can you give a real-world business example of where confirmation bias is relevant. Have you seen this in your own experience?

View Explanation

Log in for full answers

Similar Questions

In a consumer society, many adults channel creativity into buying things

Economic stress and unpredictable times have resulted in a booming industry for self-help products

People born without creativity never can develop it

A product has a selling price of $20, a contribution margin ratio of 40% and fixed cost of $120,000. To make a profit of $30,000. The number of units that must be sold is: Type the number without $ and a comma. Eg: 20000

Which of the following statement regarding cost is correct:

Under the assumptions used in cost-volume-profit analysis, as the activity increases:

The CVP and break-even analysis are supported by a range of important assumptions. Which of the following is not an assumption of the CVP:

The break-even point is that at which:

More Practical Tools for Students Powered by AI Study Helper

Homework AI Solver

Stylized AI Paper Writer

Plagiarism Checker Assistant

Citation AI Academic Writing Tool

In-Class Translation Assistant

AI Note Generator

AI Quiz Answers

Past Exam Questions from University Test Bank

Smart Practice Assistant

Adaptive Practice

Making Your Study Simpler