Conservatism Bias
We insufficiently revise our beliefs when presented with new evidence.
Conservatism bias (also known as regressive bias) is a tendency in decision-making and belief revision for people to insufficiently revise their opinion when presented with new evidence. This is related to the anchoring effect but distinct from it — while anchoring applies to initial reference points, conservatism bias applies to how slowly we update beliefs even when new data is compelling. Bayesian reasoning requires appropriate belief updating that most people systematically underdo.
What it looks like in the wild.
- Everyday life Weather Forecast Distrust People discount updated weather forecasts in favor of their existing belief about what the weather will be.
Recognising a definition is not the same skill as spotting it.
Two scenarios from the app, with distractors drawn from the same family of biases — which is what makes them hard.
After being shown that a policy they support has actually increased problems, a political supporter continues advocating for it because their initial endorsement anchors their political identity more strongly than evidence suggesting the policy has had unintended negative consequences.
A teacher who has always graded based on tests continues this practice despite evidence that portfolio-based assessment better measures student understanding, because their assessment tradition anchors their grading approach against pedagogical research.
Biases rarely arrive alone.
Understand more. Assume less.
188 biases, 18,869 scenarios, and a record of how you actually decide.
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