Empirical analyses of the factors affecting confirmation bias and the effects of confirmation bias on software developer/tester performance

Abstract

Background: During all levels of software testing, the goal should be to fail the code. However, software developers and testers are more likely to choose positive tests rather than negative ones due to the phenomenon called confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is defined as the tendency of people to verify their hypotheses rather than refuting them. In the literature, there are theories about the possible effects of confirmation bias on software development and testing. Due to the tendency towards positive tests, most of the software defects remain undetected, which in turn leads to an increase in software defect density.