Confirmation Bias and Uncertainty Avoidance

I found it interesting reading about the "confirmation bias" and how people are prone to ignoring certain information that doesn't confirm their presupposed position. What is even more interesting is how this confirmation bias resembles the theory of "Uncertainty Avoidance" in cross-cultural psychology.

Hofsteade's Cultural Dimensions theory is a part of intercultural communication and defines the most important areas of a culture's communication patterns. One of these communication areas is "uncertainty avoidance," which defines how likely the people of a culture are to avoid the anxiety that comes with taking risks, accepting change, and facing the unknown. In the United States, our bend toward uncertainty avoidance can generally be seen in our anxiety about being "on time," how many laws we create to keep order, how many prisoners we hold to reduce risk, and even how often we check the weather to be prepared if anything should change. Reading about the polarization of our politics is an example of how uncertainty avoidance plays out in our culture. People who want to avoid the uncertainty of seeing opposing views on their Facebook timeline will delete friend and only surround themselves with what is comfortable and congruent with their likes. This is also the "confirmation bias."

What is most interesting to me is how cultures all over the world differ in uncertainty avoidance. We should expect to see the most change and reform coming from countries with low levels of uncertainty avoidance. Likewise, these will be the countries will less confirmation bias. On the contrary, countries with a strong confirmation bias will be set in their ways, with high uncertainty avoidance, most likely leading them to stick with tradition and reject reform. If the US wants to see significant change, it must start with embracing uncertainty.