People evaluate evidence and test hypotheses in a way biased toward their own opinions.
Stanovich's term, and his finding is uncomfortable: myside bias is largely independent of intelligence, so smarter people are not less prone to it and are better at constructing justifications.
In practice
- A senior analyst asked to review a proposal she opposed returns four pages of methodological objection, none of which she raised against her own paper using the same method.
- Two well-read people given the same study on the same evening each find, independently, that it supports what they already believed.