Selective Perception

Selective perception is one more shortcut we use: normally when we make a decision, we previously have an alternative in mind. This implied favorite then influences how we go about the decision-making process. If I favor flextime, I am likely to gather lots of examples of where it has been effectual and had optimistic results. However, I am unlikely to collect information on cases where it hasn't worked. In some situations I may not even see or hear things that contradict my preferred view, and I positively won't go energetically looking for "disconfirming evidence": facts that may demonstrate me wrong. Yet every scientist knows that the only way to prove something is to disprove it: You can never establish that all swans are white, as it is unfeasible for you to look at all swans, past, present, and future. You can, however, show to be false the statement: one surveillance of a black swan proves that "not all swans are white."

In the workplace, if we believe someone of poor performance, we will watch them intimately-and, sure enough, we'll see confirmation that they are poor performers,  but how often do we aggressively look for the disconfirming confirmation? Maybe that poor routine was a one-off, and they are normally good performer, but we will never know, because we are not looking for that information.