Confirmation Bias and How It Effects us as a Society
The Implications
In class this far, we have been discussing many terms and ideas that affect us as humans. Through this, I was able to get a better understanding of the term confirmation bias and all that comes with it. This theory is “the tendency to process information by looking for, or interpreting, information that is consistent with one’s existing beliefs.” Meaning that when someone wants an idea or concept to be true they actually start to believe that it is true by looking for information that reaffirms their beliefs. This is a great example of how we as humans process information in an incorrect biased way and how people are susceptible to this bias. We all have different views and beliefs which is great! It’s not so great when it limits how someone interprets information and twists it into what they believe it actually is. Confirmation bias comes down to 2 cognitive mechanisms. First is challenge avoidance which is the desire to avoid finding out that you are wrong and reinforcement seeking which is the desire to find out you’re right. Challenge avoidance allows us to ignore information that constructs our own beliefs while reinforcement seeking can help reduce cognitive dissonance by encouraging people to find evidence that supports their already existing beliefs.
Why Do People Believe in Confirmation Bias?
A lot of times people believe in confirmation bias because they want to feel good about themselves and protect their self-esteem. Most people hate being wrong and corrected by someone else, so to protect themselves from these feelings they conform to bias. People often find information that already supports their current way of thinking so that in their own head there is no way that they are wrong. This way of thinking can be extremely toxic because it not only prevents us from looking at situations objectively but can influence the decisions we make and lead to poor choices. It also makes it difficult to comprehend ideas or beliefs that are outside of our own.
How Might it Affect Society as a Whole?
This really affects society as a whole because again, people actively look for information that supports their own personal beliefs, and if everyone is doing this how do we know what’s correct or not? People are able to remember supporting points to a controversy that supports their side rather than the opposing side which can cause a lot of division. For example, if I believed that the earth is flat (which I do not but hypothetically if I did) I would search google for sources that strictly support the fact that the earth is flat rather than looking at all of the facts that the earth is a sphere. See this issue in this? Any thought that we have can technically be supported by anything because the internet is infinite and what you might believe is true someone else out there most definitely does too. It’s hard to distingue what is true or not because of the “news articles” that state they have the “facts” yet they are just writing in a biased perspective. Oftentimes people get their news from one source because it supports what they believe is to be true.
This affects our society in a smaller scheme as well with the way people view political information. Take the most recent election, for example, it was all about pointing fingers and what he or she did wrong. People usually spend more time looking at information that supports their political party rather than looking at information that contradicts it. Have you seen the video with Jordan Klepper absolutely trolling Trump supporters at a Trump rally? He will go around to get people’s opinions on the latest news. In one video specifically, a woman told him she had facts about how much Trump has done for the unemployment rate, she said Trump had added 4 million jobs while under Biden and Obama it was negative 2.8 million. When Jordan asked the woman what website she was on she said she had no idea. This is just one example of someone reading one thing offline and running with it and it goes for both political parties! Lies and rumors are constantly being spread. It’s so hard nowadays to find reliable information.
We even see confirmation bias affect the way medical professionals diagnose their patients. I have heard so many stories of people who get diagnosed with something at one doctor and go to get a second, third, fourth opinion and they all tell them something different. This is because doctors will search for information that supports their initial diagnosis and not the other possibilities. Even in the court of law judges or jurors can sometimes form an opinion of a defendant before the evidence is even known. Once the evidence is presented it’s common that the judge will take that and process it based on what their bias was. This can lead to inaccurate impressions of others and a wrongly judged case. Confirmation bias also is known to cause big problems within families. As we grow up we are constantly soaking up information. There’s info that we don’t consciously learn rather it’s taught through the environment, so if someone grows up in a conservative household their views are going to be shaped from that viewpoint. As they grow up these views get pushed into their subconscious and are hard to get rid of turning into confirmation bias. Also, There was a study done that children who take different paths than their siblings or do not do as well academically or socially are known to be a victim of confirmation bias by their parents. Another large way we see these affect children is in divorce situations. It is extremely common for ex-spouses to talk poorly of one another and not be able to find the positive qualities in the other parent. It put their kids in a place where they feel like have to choose sides or can’t figure out which parent is correct.
How to Avoid Confirmation Bias?
It is really important when trying to reduce confirmation bias that you are counteracting those thoughts in your head that make confirmation bias a home in your brain in the first place. It is helpful when having a conversation with someone who has a different view than you, rather than arguing, to try and figure out the right answer with facts and proven statistics that can help both of you have a more open and friendly conversation. It is also important to not let emotions get the best of us, it’s natural to let our emotions speak for us. Encouraging others to challenge their own beliefs and asking them to explain their reasoning for supporting a certain stance can also help understand and speak to one another. At the end of the day, we are all human and believe what we believe I have of course fallen into the cycle of confirmation bias but it’s important to look for facts and understand that it is ok to be wrong and we can have civil conversations with one another.
