DOTA 2: The Game and the Mind

What is Confirmation Bias and how it ruins our game?

To unravel the mysteries you need to know them first

Confirmation Bias is one of the fruits from the tree of the wrong perception, and you are the one to feed it to yourself. They say people looking for an argument will always find one. Confirmation bias is something similar.

Confirmation bias is blaming a particular reason for your loss and using it to confirm your claim. "The PA was over farmed because our mid lost to it, and that's why we lost the game" - Pointing PA's farm at 15th min mark will confirm this statement as a fact and this is confirmation bias.

If you dive deeper, you will realize that the PA was over farmed, and your midlane was weak. But how do you win a game with a weak mid? How do you stop your enemy mid from getting overfarmed especially if your midlane is unable to stop him?

You realize you could have ganked the PA in the lane. If he comes back to the lane you get the kill on the PA. If he is smart enough to avoid the gank and go to the jungle, you can be smarter and ward the jungle, gank the PA anyway and delay his farm.

Another example, according to confirmation bias, Void is an OP hero with an OP ultimate because he can catch all five of you in a Chrono and that will lead to a team wipe. According to proper perception, you weren't spread enough to avoid the Chrono, you did not have the vision to keep an eye on the Void. With wards and proper positioning, a Void can never catch all five in a Chrono and if all of you don't die in the Chrono it will not seem so OP.

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