Confirmation bias

Emilija Gailiešaitė TB1

 Confirmation bias - the tendency to process information by
looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent
with one’s existing beliefs.
 People are more attentive to information that can
potentially support their expectations and they are likely to
ignore information that can contradict their expectations.
  Confirmation bias influences how information is
gathered, interpreted, and recalled.
 Those who support or oppose a particular issue
will seek information to support it, and interpret
it in a way that confirms their existing ideas.
Examples  Confirmation bias might have an impact in such
areas like medicine and law
 This bias can produce misdiagnosis
 Judges and jurors might form an opinion about a
defendant’s guilt or innocence before all of the
evidence is known
   An efficient way to process information
 People tend to use heuristics because they save energy as
all the aspects of a situation do not have to be analysed.
 Supporting a decision
 Information that differs from the decision may cause
discomfort and may be ignored or given little
consideration.
 Self-esteem

Explanations  Discovering that a belief which they value highly is

incorrect makes them feel bad about themselves and
they try to avoid this.
 Minimizing cognitive dissonance
 Cognitive dissonance is a mental conflict that occurs
when a person holds two contradictory beliefs and causes
psychological stress. To minimize this dissonance, people
avoid information that is contradictory to their views and
seek evidence that confirms their beliefs, and this way
confirmation bias appears.
  Aim: to investigate the heuristics of confirmation bias and the
errors people make in logical tasks based on heuristics
 “Every card has a letter on one side and a number on the other. 
Empirical Your task is to decide which of the cards you need to turn over in
order to find out whether or not a certain rule is being followed. 
support – The rule is: 'If a card has an "A" on one side, then it must have a "4"
Wason's on the other side. 'Turn over only those cards that you need to check
to be sure.”
selection task  The  results showed that the subjects chose responses that
1968 supported their hypotheses while rejecting contradictory evidence
 These quick and effortless decisions based on heuristics can be
attributed to system 1 thinking. This task required conscious and
controlled consideration of the problem - system 2 thinking.
  Casad, Bettina J.. Confirmation bias. Encyclopedia Britannica,
9 Oct. 2019, 
https://www.britannica.com/science/confirmation-bias.
 https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-confirmation-bias-2795
References 024
 
 https://www.simplypsychology.org/confirmation-bias.html
 Popov A., Parker L., Seath D. Psychology course companion. 2017.
2nd edition