In psychology and cognitive science, confirmation bias is a tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions, leading to statistical errors.
Slide 2 What Is the Effect of Confirmation Bias? A tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one’s preconceptions, leading to statistical errors
- Decision makers actively seek out and give more credence to evidence supportive of their own hypothesis.
– Evidence that could disconfirm their hypothesis is ignored and/or devalued. Decision makers have been shown to actively seek out and assign more weight to evidence that confirms their hypothesis and ignore or devalue evidence that could disconfirm their hypothesis.
Slide 3 Evidence
- Confirmation bias occurs from the direct influence or desire on beliefs. – People want a certain idea to be true.
- People will believe it is true. – “wishful thinking”
- Errors from confirmation bias halt the gathering of information, as what’s been collected already confirms the views they would like to be true.
- Confirmation bias indicates humans’ inability to objectively perceive circumstances. – Possibility to become a prisoner of one’s own assumptions In other words, confirmation bias occurs from the direct influence of desire on beliefs. When people would like a certain idea or concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true, which is wishful thinking. This error leads people to stop gathering information when the evidence gathered so far confirms the views or prejudices they would like to be true. Confirmation bias suggests that we don’t perceive circumstances objectively. We pick out those bits of data that make us feel good because they confirm our prejudices. Thus, we may become prisoners of our own assumptions.
