Confirmation Bias Essay

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Confirmation Bias

The book “Riveted”, by Professor Jim Davis briefly mentions briefly about a type of cognitive bias known as confirmation bias. Multiple studies have depicted that generally people tend to give exorbitant amount of appraisal to confirmatory information which is, data that’s supports one’s own point of view. The most likely reason for the exorbitant influence of confirmatory information is that it is very easy to deal with cognitively (Gilovich 1993). It is observed that it is much easier for someone to notice how a piece of data supports their view than how it revolts it for example, if one believes that people get more aggressive during a full moon, he/she will take notice of people who get aggressive during a full moon but when someone is not being aggressive, they tend not take notice (Jim Davis).
Various amounts of research has been conducted to support the idea of confirmation bias e.g. An Ohio State study in 2009 depicted that people spend 36 percent more time reading an essay if that essay attends to their opinions. Confirmation bias is explained to be one of the reasons certain people are very critical of certain races/genders etc. For example, if a person believes that women are bad drivers …show more content…
Since we have a mental block and do not cater to information that is contrary to our beliefs, we tend to think more subjectively rather than objectively hence causing us to be closed-minded. Doctors, Journalists and Judges all make poor decisions by catering to information that supports their idea e.g. a doctor may try to find reasons as to why the symptoms relate to a specific illness, he may ignore the symptoms that relate to other illnesses. A judge may already decide whether the defendant is innocent or guilty by the looks of him/her and then listen to the evidence that supports their ideas. People need to be aware of such a bias as it can help in better future decision
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