Confirmation & Self-Interest Bias

I think back at the recent submersible Titan disaster suffered by OceanGate. The former CEO Stockton Rush failed to critically think past several biases, but I want to focus specifically on confirmation and self-interest bias. These two are closely related so for my paper I will define confirmation bias as the behaviour in which one will search for evidence that supports one’s stance without viewing any contrary evidence and secondly I will define self-interest bias when one takes action to benefit themselves without the consideration of others that may also be impacted.

While acting as CEO, Stockton Rush engineered and constructed the submersible Titan. Mr. Rush would describe his ‘innovative’ design choices to the submariner communities. The experts in these fields cautioned Stockton on what they examined to be design flaws they feared made the structure unsound. In interviews Stockton was adamant about his rational in his choices, however I believe this was an example of both confirmation and self-interest bias.

Stockton failed to see past the research he had done even though experts in the field he was researching were advising him against his position. There were several moments in the development of the Titan that should have caused him to rethink his project. Due to Stockton’s confirmation bias he was unwilling to accept or even view the valid criticism he was prone to. He was given opportunities to correct his trajectory however the work to explore these contradictions was too much for him to commit to.

Stockton was influenced by his own self-interests to prove himself correct causing him to ignore these warnings. I believe that he had several different reasons that rewarded his self-interest bias, money, notoriety, and success for his company, but I think ultimately it was his need to prove himself smarter than those that doubted him. In the end these biases led to his lack of critical thinking and reasoning, caused his craft to implode killing himself and others on board, and shortly afterwards his company would cease operations.