Confirmation Bias: The Russians and Stephen A. Smith

"Saying is Believing."


Confirmation bias is in the 2019 news because of its relevance to U.S. politics. American voters have funneled themselves into camps that are virtually impervious to contradictory evidence or opinions. These voters seek only that information which agrees with their established respective mindsets.

Prior to the 2016 elections, Russian troll farms guided many Americans into disparate political camps much faster than would have naturally occurred. Putin set the wind beneath the wings of U.S. voter party alienation. Once the U.S. factions had been pushed a bit faster into their echo chambers, the Russians continually seeded more radical attitudes in those chambers, resulting in increasingly isolated, radicalized American subgroups.The Russians effectively insulated U.S. citizens from each other's perspectives. Putin affected the way Americans perceive each other, and he changed American behavior going forward. Scary stuff.

So what does all of this have to do with Stephen A. Smith?


Conflict and Ratings

American television is a capitalist enterprise. Higher ratings mean more money -- more product sold for advertisers, more income for networks, more money for parent companies, better salaries for stars on the shows. This is the case for everything from The Muppets to ABC's nightly news to a football pre-game show.

Humans are hard wired to attend to human faces and human voices. They are especially hard wired to attend to human conflict. Attention-getting aspects of conflict include higher decibels so as to command the aural stage and non-verbal gesticulating to command the physical stage. Conflict sells. Conflict is the most important component of almost every reality show. The reality shows can range from the political Crossfire on CNN (which set the stage for today's echo chamber politics) to Little Women:  LA to 90 Day Fiance'. Television is shooting for conflict. Conflict gets ratings.

What's wrong with that? And where does Stephen A. Smith fit into all of this?


Gambling Effects

All of the sports talk shows on television, whether head-to-head talk formats or pre-game warmups, are sorely lacking in impartial analysis, the dry asking of proper questions, and the framing of theories. Instead, the shows are rife with declarations disguised as debates about future events. Questions are rarely asked in probabilistic terms. The people on the shows are too busy making declarative statements that conflict with each other. Unless one is clairvoyant, making declarative statements about future events is probably a bad idea, for an array of reasons. You're more likely to see me use "more likely" in a given sentence than you are to hear "more likely" in all of a network's college football prediction shows combined.

I've highlighted Stephen A. Smith because he's an iconic declarer who presents his opinions with a forcefulness, both verbal and non-verbal, best left for boxers after their arms have been raised in victory. Really, the ridiculous certainty of most sports show talking heads is a widespread disease. Skip Bayless, Kirk Herbstreit, almost any ESPN panel, and virtually every sports show on television -- all of them employ conflict and proclamations of certainty as audience hooks. And so one might ask once again, what is wrong with that? Well, to be honest, not much is wrong with it if you're watching and not betting games with the intention of winning. But if you're betting games and trying to win, watching this kind of programming is absolutely toxic, counter-productive, and much worse than just a waste of time.

Most of the formats involve declarative "debates." The topics, which can entail fantasy selections, who will win what games, or college playoff rankings, tend to funnel viewers into camps. The television personalities present their individual conclusions, and viewers are invited to adopt one or another perspective. This guides viewers down the slippery slope to personal commitments, rather than neutral theorizing. In essence, you have been guided into echo chambers. What Russians did to the American electorate, ESPN does to college football fan bases and viewers in general. And they do it every blessed day. Once you've committed to a viewpoint prior to an event, you are in an echo chamber, and that is nowhere for a gambler to be. A commitment is like a thick fog. You'll be able to make out just the bare outlines and dim shapes of actual reality as it unfolds, despite the fact that reality is taking place right in front of you.

Commitments lead to confirmation biases, which include perceptual biases and memory biases. While the primrose path to confirmation biases may be the single most important reason to avoid sports shows, the talking heads also create other compelling problems for would-be winning gamblers. For example, Billy Walters with five players in his pocket would not display the conviction and certainty of the television pundits. The declarative style of the broadcasters can easily have an intimidating or dampening effect on a sports bettor who wisely holds conviction at arm's length. Also, broadcasters spend most of their time discussing players and coaches. In college football, the games are not player versus player or even coach versus coach. The games are organism versus organism. Watching these television shows teaches bettors the absolute wrong way to analyze college football games. If you want to be a winning tennis player, watching people playing tennis with baseball bats teaches you very little. The types of analysis on television are literally that wrong. The tools are wrong, and if the tools are wrong, not much of what follows can be right.

Some people respond by saying that they rely on mid-week and pre-game shows to get injury updates and learn key stats. Folks, if you're learning about injuries and stats from a television show, you are not really trying to win (not that there's anything Seinfeldian wrong with that). For those trying to win, injury updates are best tracked online. I cannot emphasize this enough, but time is of the essence in sports gambling, and reading is faster than listening to the same content. Allow me to repeat that. Reading is much, much faster than listening to the same thing. The only conceivable reason for watching a pre-game broadcast would be to see the on site weather. Even then, you can keep the sound off.

There are other social psychological reasons to avoid the television sports shows, and we'll review those down the road. We'll also discuss ways to fend off intellectual commitment. For now, however, keep your mouths shut and the sound turned down. Don't let the Russkies or Stephen A. Smith get to you.


Bob Dietz -- June 26, 2019