Confirmation Bias

What Is Confirmation Bias?

Confirmation bias is a cognitive bias that makes people only stick to information they have beforehand. Otherwise, it will be just reinterpreted or remembered in a way that favours the beliefs or premises they already have. Such systematic blindness triggers people to unconsciously ignore or refute the information contradicting their views, although the selectively accepted ones confirm their one-sided opinions. They observe the impact of confirmation bias on various choices, problem-solving, and reasoning since it can affect decision-making and judgment on the personal, professional, and societal levels.

The phenomena like the spread of misinformation and the inability to make the right decisions can negatively impact thinking. This widespread bias can comprise anyone who is intellectual or hasn't had any schooling. Identifying confirmation bias is essential for encouraging objectivity as well as a heady thinking process in an attempt to achieve better analysis of data. Some strategies that may be developed in this regard include actively seeking perspectives that are not in tandem with yours, thinking of and considering every possible alternative hypothesis, and testing the evidence.

Example Of Confirmation Bias

Confirmation biases are one of the biases that occur in political discourse. Now, imagine somebody whose political identity is closely linked to one of the concepts, for example, liberalism or conservatism. When an individual reads right through information or an article with the same information, he/she is likelier to believe what he/she reads, strengthening their underlying position. Nevertheless, they may discredit the information, contradicting their beliefs if they receive it that way, and there may be a possibility of overlooking its validity without even elaborating on it. In this instance, a liberal individual will smoothly take the factual pieces that are critical to conservative policies and, at the same time, dismiss the critical thoughts of the liberal policies using the elements of being biased and inaccurate. This selective use and disuse of the information that stems from a person's beliefs shows the effect of confirmation bias, resulting in the formation of two opposite opinions.