Concept
Bias Tests
Bias tests are quick thought experiments, such as the double standard, outsider, conformity and selective skeptic tests, that you run on your own reasoning to check whether you are weighing evidence fairly or defending a belief you want to be true.
Motivated reasoning is hardest to spot where it matters most: in beliefs tied to your identity, like your political side, your company or your career bet. From the inside it doesn't feel like bias. It feels like being right. Julia Galef's answer in The Scout Mindset is to stop trusting that feeling and probe it with counterfactuals. The double standard test asks whether you'd judge the same behaviour the same way if someone from the other side did it. The outsider test imagines a newcomer stepping into your shoes with no attachment to your past choices. The conformity test asks whether you'd still hold the view if the people you respect dropped it. The selective skeptic test asks how hard you'd scrutinise this evidence if it pointed the other way. None of these tests proves you wrong. They show you where to look again, and they make it easier to hold your identity loosely.
A real-life example
Maya has spent two years building a meal-kit startup. When a similar competitor folds, she dismisses it as "bad execution." Then she runs the selective skeptic test: if this had happened to a business I already doubted, would I blame execution or a weak market? Honestly, a weak market. She doesn't quit. Before raising more money, though, she books five calls with customers who cancelled.
How to use it
- 1Pick one belief you'd be uncomfortable losing, such as a stance, a plan or a person you've backed, and write it down in one sentence.
- 2Run two tests on it. First swap the sides (double standard), then flip the evidence (selective skeptic). Note any answer that changes.
- 3Wherever an answer shifted, ask one or two honest people who have no stake in it to push back. While they do, hold the label loosely.