Beware of Confirmation Bias
Stop. Think. Verify.
When I first watched Monster’s Inc., I did not initially grasp the deeper message of the movie and how closely it paralleled the current state of our society. Today, I consider it one of the most honest parables about power I have ever encountered. Think back to the world in which the movie was set. The entire society was powered by fear and the screams that came from intentionally instigating that fear by policy and not by happenstance. The targets in the movie were innocent children who had been raised to fear monsters in their closets. Their screams were collected, measured, stored, and converted into energy. Everyone in the society accepted this arrangement as inevitable. The fear was not questioned, it was normalized and incredibly profitable.
At some point, someone dared to ask a forbidden question. What if fear was not the most powerful force available to us? What if joy, laughter, and delight generate more energy than terror ever could? When that truth was discovered, the entire system was exposed as not only immoral, but inefficient. What once seemed necessary was revealed as a failure of imagination.
I cannot watch that movie anymore without thinking about our media ecosystem and culture. We live in a society powered by outrage. Anger is harvested. Fear is monetized. Division is refined into a renewable resource. The more emotionally agitated we are, the more valuable we become to the system that feeds on our attention. And like the monsters in that fictional world, many of us have accepted this arrangement as normal, even righteous.
That is where confirmation bias enters the story. In the social media age, we are conditioned to react before we reflect. We are so quick to respond, so eager to confirm our prejudices, so ready to judge, and so tempted to gloat, that we forget one simple discipline. Stop. Think. Verify.
Instead, we feel first and investigate later, if at all. We confuse emotional intensity with moral clarity. We mistake confidence for correctness. We assume that if a claim flatters our worldview or vilifies our adversaries, it must be true. Confirmation bias thrives in this environment because it feels like wisdom while quietly hollowing it out.
Media, at least in its healthiest form, was meant to help us understand the world. Today, much of it exists to help us feel right about ourselves. It no longer asks, what is true? It asks, what will keep you engaged? What will provoke outrage? What will reinforce identity? What will keep the screams flowing?
Outrage is economically valuable. Calm reflection is not. Nuance does not trend. Verification does not go viral. But anger does. Fear does. Moral panic does. So the system feeds us a steady diet of narratives designed not to inform, but to confirm, and we accept it. Gladly.
We accept being spoon fed interpretations rather than doing the harder work of examining facts. We accept caricatures instead of complexity. We accept stories that distort reality, drive enmity, and foster division, because they feel emotionally satisfying. They tell us who the villains are. They tell us we are on the right side. They absolve us of the responsibility to think deeply. The cost of this convenience is enormous.
When confirmation bias takes root, truth becomes secondary to belonging. Accuracy yields to alignment. Over time, we lose the ability to correct ourselves because correction feels like betrayal. Disagreement feels like an attack. Inquiry feels dangerous. A society in this condition becomes easy to manipulate and hard to heal.
This is why I have become increasingly convinced that Stop. Think. Verify is not a slogan, but a way of life.
Stopping is an act of resistance. It means refusing to be emotionally hijacked. When a headline makes me instantly furious or instantly smug, I have learned to pause. Strong emotional reactions are often signals, not proofs. They tell me that someone may be trying to bypass my reason and go straight for my nerves.
Thinking is an act of humility. It requires me to ask questions I would rather avoid. Who benefits if this is true? What evidence is actually being presented? What context might be missing? What would it look like if I am wrong? Thinking honestly is uncomfortable because it threatens certainty, but it is the only path to wisdom.
Verifying is an act of reverence for truth. It means tracing claims back to their sources. It means reading beyond headlines. It means comparing accounts, not to win an argument, but to understand reality. Truth does not fear inspection. Falsehood depends on haste.
These habits slow us down, which is why they are so difficult to practice in a culture addicted to speed.
The Monster’s Inc. analogy keeps resurfacing here because it exposes the lie we have accepted. We assume outrage is the most powerful fuel for engagement, for awareness, for change. We assume fear is necessary to keep people paying attention. We assume the screams must continue or the lights will go out.
But what if that assumption is wrong?
What if optimism, joy, beauty, and hope are not only morally superior, but more powerful? What if laughter produces more energy than outrage ever could?
This is not a call to deny evil or ignore injustice. It is a call to confront reality without surrendering our souls to rage. Optimism is not blindness. It is confidence rooted in truth. Joy is not frivolity. It is strength. Beauty is not escapism. It reminds us what is worth preserving.
Can we make optimism economically valuable? I believe we can, but only if we choose to.
Systems respond to incentives, and incentives are shaped by behavior. What we click on, what we share, what we amplify, and what we reward all communicate what we value. If we reward outrage, we will get more of it. If we reward wisdom, patience, and clarity, those virtues will grow.
This choice begins at the individual level. It begins with refusing to participate in the outrage economy. It begins with modeling discernment for our children. It begins with valuing being truthful over being triumphant.
The work is slower. The rewards are quieter. But the results are enduring.
A free society depends on citizens capable of self-governance, and self-governance begins with mastery of the mind. Confirmation bias erodes that mastery by training us to protect our ego rather than pursue truth.
I do not want to live in a world powered by screams. I want to live in one illuminated by understanding.
That future will not arrive by accident. It will be built by people willing to stop, think, and verify, even when doing so costs them applause.
“Outrage is loud, but truth is patient, and patience always outlasts the noise.” — Alma Ohene-Opare
Excellent articulation of an important message! I think there are more people wanting truth than we think. Positive Psychology teaches us that joy, hope and optimism can be learned, but also take courage to pursue. The courage to turn away from fear, to turn towards what sustains our well-being which is truth, humility, courage, optimism and love. Keep sharing your message, it is so worthwhile! I think people are getting tired of being triggered by the media, and the tide will turn to learn how to not be triggered by headlines. People want something different, but like you said it takes time, to pause, to stop, to think, to verify. Thank you.