Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one’s prior beliefs or values.[1] People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information, or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes. The effect is strongest for desired outcomes, for emotionally charged issues, and for deeply entrenched beliefs. Confirmation bias cannot be eliminated, but it can be managed, for example, by education and training in critical thinking skills.
Biased search for information, biased interpretation of this information, and biased memory recall, have been invoked to explain four specific effects:
attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence)
belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false)
the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series)
illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations).
A series of psychological experiments in the 1960s suggested that people are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs. Later work re-interpreted these results as a tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives. Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information. Another proposal is that people show confirmation bias because they are pragmatically assessing the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way.
Flawed decisions due to confirmation bias have been found in a wide range of political, organizational, financial and scientific contexts. These biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. For example, confirmation bias produces systematic errors in scientific research based on inductive reasoning (the gradual accumulation of supportive evidence). Similarly, a police detective may identify a suspect early in an investigation, but then may only seek confirming rather than disconfirming evidence. A medical practitioner may prematurely focus on a particular disorder early in a diagnostic session, and then seek only confirming evidence. In social media, confirmation bias is amplified by the use of filter bubbles, or “algorithmic editing”, which display to individuals only information they are likely to agree with, while excluding opposing views.
Michel, M., & Peters, M. A. K.. (2021). Confirmation bias without rhyme or reason. Synthese
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s11229-020-02910-x
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“Having a confirmation bias sometimes leads us to hold inaccurate beliefs. so, the puzzle goes: why do we have it? according to the influential argumentative theory of reasoning, confirmation bias emerges because the primary function of reason is not to form accurate beliefs, but to convince others that we’re right. a crucial prediction of the theory, then, is that confirmation bias should be found only in the reasoning domain. in this article, we argue that there is evidence that confirmation bias does exist outside the reasoning domain. this undermines the main evidential basis for the argumentative theory of reasoning. in presenting the relevant evidence, we explore why having such confirmation bias may not be maladaptive.”
Rollwage, M., & Fleming, S. M.. (2021). Confirmation bias is adaptive when coupled with efficient metacognition. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1098/rstb.2020.0131
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“Biases in the consideration of evidence can reduce the chances of consensus between people with different viewpoints. while such altered information processing typically leads to detrimental performance in laboratory tasks, the ubiquitous nature of confirmation bias makes it unlikely that selective information processing is universally harmful. here, we suggest that confirmation bias is adaptive to the extent that agents have good metacognition, allowing them to downweight contradictory information when correct but still able to seek new information when they realize they are wrong. using simulation-based modelling, we explore how the adaptiveness of holding a confirmation bias depends on such metacognitive insight. we find that the behavioural consequences of selective information processing are systematically affected by agents’ introspective abilities. strikingly, we find that selective information processing can even improve decision-making when compared with unbiased evidence accumulation, as long as it is accompanied by good metacognition. these results further suggest that interventions which boost people’s metacognition might be efficient in alleviating the negative effects of selective information processing on issues such as political polarization. this article is part of the theme issue ‘the political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms’.”
Ling, R.. (2020). Confirmation Bias in the Era of Mobile News Consumption: The Social and Psychological Dimensions. Digital Journalism
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2020.1766987
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“Confirmation bias is the predisposition to only consume the news, or what appears to be news, that confirms our pre-existing attitudes and beliefs, e.g. anti-vaxxers reading only anti-vaccination material. this plays out, for example, in reading only the news/postings that fit our political or social leaning. it is done to avoid cognitive dissonance as well as eventual disfavor from our social network. confirmation bias is an important element supporting the diffusion of false news via digital platforms. it is important that we understand the underlying cognitive as well as the social mechanisms and dynamics, e.g. can the news of covid-19 disrupt or eventually further entrench the cognitive and social dynamics of anti-vaxxer individuals and groups?.”
Melinder, A., Brennen, T., Husby, M. F., & Vassend, O.. (2020). Personality, confirmation bias, and forensic interviewing performance. Applied Cognitive Psychology
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1002/acp.3674
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“Confirmation bias is a universal characteristic of human cognition, with consequences for information processing and reasoning in everyday situations as well as in professional work such as forensic interviewing. cognitive measures such as general intelligence are also related to personality traits, but there is a lack of research on personality and confirmation bias specifically. this study focuses, firstly, on the relationship between big five personality traits and confirmation bias as measured by the wason selection task, and secondly, how these dispositions are related to observed performance in real forensic interviews of child victims. in a sample of police interviewers, openness (i.e., the facets ideas and fantasy) and neuroticism (i.e., the facets anxiety and vulnerability) were independently associated with confirmation bias (n = 72). scores on the selection task, the openness facet values, and the extraversion facets assertiveness and activity were consistently related to interview performance (n = 46). implications of these findings are discussed for the empirical and conceptual relations of cognitive ability to personality and for the selection and training of police interviewers and their professional development.”
Knobloch-Westerwick, S., Mothes, C., & Polavin, N.. (2020). Confirmation Bias, Ingroup Bias, and Negativity Bias in Selective Exposure to Political Information. Communication Research
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0093650217719596
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“Selective reading of political online information was examined based on cognitive dissonance, social identity, and news values frameworks. online reports were displayed to 156 americans while selective exposure was tracked. the news articles that participants chose from were either conservative or liberal and also either positive or negative regarding american political policies. in addition, information processing styles (cognitive reflection and need-for-cognition) were measured. results revealed confirmation and negativity biases, per cognitive dissonance and news values, but did not corroborate the hypothesis derived from social identity theory. greater cognitive reflection, greater need-for-cognition, and worse affective state fostered the confirmation bias; stronger social comparison tendency reduced the negativity bias.”
Dibbets, P., Borger, L., & Nederkoorn, C.. (2021). Filthy fruit! Confirmation bias and novel food. Appetite
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.appet.2021.105607
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“Fruit and vegetable consumption is worldwide too low, resulting in poor diet quality and health-related problems. a cognitive factor that might contribute to this low consumption is confirmation bias. confirmation bias has been established in anxiety research and comprises the tendency to search for reinforcing negative information, while ignoring counter attitudinal information. if applicable to food, asking for negative food information reinforces the negative attitude and decreases the willingness to try (novel) food. the aim of the current study was twofold. first, to examine if confirmation bias translates to food stimuli. second, to investigate if this bias is exaggerated in persons with higher levels of food neophobia. to this end, 117 participants (age m = 21.45, sd = 4.48) carried out an online study. they filled in the food neophobia scale (fns) and performed a search for additional information scale (sais) task. four novel fruits were used, two looking tasteful (pomelo and rose apple) and two looking non-tasteful (black sapote and noni fruit). participants rated their willingness to eat these fruits and subsequently could indicate how eager they were to receive positive or negative information regarding that fruit. the results indicated that the participants were more willing to try the tasteful looking fruits than the non-tasteful. additionally, higher levels of food neophobia coincided with less willingness to eat all fruits. confirmation bias was observed, more negative information was requested for the non-tasteful than for the tasteful fruits. this bias was not related to levels of food neophobia. these results are important as confirmation bias might make people even more negative towards novel foods and could contribute to even less fruit and vegetable consumption, especially when they look less appetizing.”
Zhou, Y., & Shen, L.. (2022). Confirmation Bias and the Persistence of Misinformation on Climate Change. Communication Research
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/00936502211028049
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“A web-based two (preexisting position: correct vs. incorrect) by two (message type: scientific information vs. misinformation) by three (messages) mixed design experimental study was conducted to test confirmation bias as a mechanism underlying the persistence of misinformation on climate change and to examine attitude certainty as a moderator of confirmation bias. data collected with qualtrics panels demonstrated robust confirmation bias in message and source perceptions, empathy, and perceived message effectiveness when individuals encountered messages consistent with their preexisting position on climate change, which in turn strengthened their preexisting position. the patterns of biased message processing and post-message position polarization were more extreme among climate change deniers. attitude certainty significantly intensified polarization of position on climate change.”
Dickinson, D. L.. (2020). Deliberation enhances the confirmation bias in politics. Games
Plain numerical DOI: 10.3390/g11040057
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“The confirmation bias, unlike other decision biases, has been shown both empirically and in theory to be enhanced with deliberation. this suggests that limited attention, reduced deliberation, or limited available cognitive resources may moderate this bias. we aimed to test this hypothesis using a validated confirmation bias task in conjunction with a protocol that randomly assigned individuals to one week of at-home sleep restriction (sr) or well-rested (wr) sleep levels. we also used a measure of cognitive reflection as an additional proxy for deliberation in our analysis. we tested the hypotheses that the confirmation bias would be stronger for wr participants and those higher in cognitive reflection on a sample of 197 young adults. our results replicated previous findings, and both males and females separately displayed the confirmation bias. regarding our deliberation hypotheses, the confirmation bias results were most precisely estimated for those having thought relatively more about the issue of gun control. additionally, for the subset of individuals having thought relatively more about gun control, we found evidence that the confirmation bias was stronger for those higher in cognitive reflection and, somewhat less robustly, for those participants who were (objectively) well-rested.”
Schumm, W. R.. (2021). Confirmation bias and methodology in social science: an editorial. Marriage and Family Review
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/01494929.2021.1872859
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“While science is presumably objective, scholars are humans, with subjective biases. those biases can lead to distortions in how they develop and use scientific theory and how they apply their research methodologies. the numerous ways in which confirmation bias may influence attempts to accept or reject the null hypothesis are discussed, with implications for research, teaching, and public policy development.”
Salman, I., Turhan, B., & Vegas, S.. (2019). A controlled experiment on time pressure and confirmation bias in functional software testing. Empirical Software Engineering
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s10664-018-9668-8
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“Context: confirmation bias is a person’s tendency to look for evidence that strengthens his/her prior beliefs rather than refutes them. manifestation of confirmation bias in software testing may have adverse effects on software quality. psychology research suggests that time pressure could trigger confirmation bias. objective: in the software industry, this phenomenon may deteriorate software quality. in this study, we investigate whether testers manifest confirmation bias and how it is affected by time pressure in functional software testing. method: we performed a controlled experiment with 42 graduate students to assess manifestation of confirmation bias in terms of the conformity of their designed test cases to the provided requirements specification. we employed a one factor with two treatments between-subjects experimental design. results: we observed, overall, participants designed significantly more confirmatory test cases as compared to disconfirmatory ones, which is in line with previous research. however, we did not observe time pressure as an antecedent to an increased rate of confirmatory testing behaviour. conclusion: people tend to design confirmatory test cases regardless of time pressure. for practice, we find it necessary that testers develop self-awareness of confirmation bias and counter its potential adverse effects with a disconfirmatory attitude. we recommend further replications to investigate the effect of time pressure as a potential contributor to the manifestation of confirmation bias.”
Hernandez, I., & Preston, J. L.. (2013). Disfluency disrupts the confirmation bias. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2012.08.010
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“One difficulty in persuasion is overcoming the confirmation bias, where people selectively seek evidence that is consistent with their prior beliefs and expectations. this biased search for information allows people to analyze new information in an efficient, but shallow way. the present research discusses how experienced difficultly in processing (disfluency) can reduce the confirmation bias by promoting careful, analytic processing. in two studies, participants with prior attitudes on an issue became less extreme after reading an argument on the issues in a disfluent format. the change occurred for both naturally occurring attitudes (i.e. political ideology) and experimentally assigned attitudes (i.e. positivity toward a court defendant). importantly, disfluency did not reduce confirmation biases when participants were under cognitive load, suggesting that cognitive resources are necessary to overcome these biases. overall, these results suggest that changing the style of an argument’s presentation can lead to attitude change by promoting more comprehensive consideration of opposing views. © 2012 elsevier inc.”
Dibbets, P., & Meesters, C.. (2022). Disconfirmation of confirmation bias: the influence of counter-attitudinal information. Current Psychology
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s12144-020-00744-x
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“The current experiment investigated whether counter-attitudinal information can alter a pre-existing attitude and the accompanying confirmation bias. sixty-three non-clinical children (9–12 years) were shown pictures of a positive animal (quokka) or a dangerous-looking animal (aye aye). for both animals attitudes and information seeking patterns were obtained. next, they received counter-attitudinal information of each animal; attitudes and seeking patterns were reassessed. we found that the aye aye was perceived as more dangerous and less kind compared to the quokka. a negative confirmation bias was observed for the aye aye, more negative than positive or neutral information was requested. for the quokka this pattern was absent, more positive and negative than neutral information was selected. the counter-attitudinal information decreased the scariness of the aye aye, but did marginally alter that of the quokka. additionally, for the aye aye counter-attitudinal information increased search for positive and neutral information and decreased search for negative information. for the quokka the counter-attitudinal information only increased search for neutral information. the animals no longer differed from each other and no clear confirmation bias patterns were present. these results indicate that it is possible to change pre-existing values and their accompanying information search patterns.”
Bagchi, R., Ham, S. H., & He, C.. (2020). Strategic Implications of Confirmation Bias-Inducing Advertising. Production and Operations Management
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/poms.13176
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“Confirmation bias, a well-established behavioral anomaly, asserts that when product experience is ambiguous, it is assimilated consistent with expectations set up by prior advertising. in this paper, we combine a strategic model with laboratory experiments to study the effects of consumers’ confirmation bias on firms’ advertising and pricing strategies and its implications for firms’ profits. our results suggest that confirmation bias does not improve firms’ profits in the short run. however, it confers benefits to products that are frequently purchased in the longer time horizon. we also show that confirmation bias-inducing advertising can have an inverse relationship with the degree of product differentiation. furthermore, we show that our results are robust whether confirmation bias is positive or negative, whether consumers have perfect memory or suffer from memory loss, and whether the price premium induced by confirmation bias is fixed or endogenous. our laboratory experiments test some of these key model predictions. the studies show that individuals behave in a manner consistent with the predictions of our model.”
Modgil, S., Singh, R. K., Gupta, S., & Dennehy, D.. (2021). A Confirmation Bias View on Social Media Induced Polarisation During Covid-19. Information Systems Frontiers
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s10796-021-10222-9
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“Social media has played a pivotal role in polarising views on politics, climate change, and more recently, the covid-19 pandemic. social media induced polarisation (smip) poses serious challenges to society as it could enable ‘digital wildfires’ that can wreak havoc worldwide. while the effects of smip have been extensively studied, there is limited understanding of the interplay between two key components of this phenomenon: confirmation bias (reinforcing one’s attitudes and beliefs) and echo chambers (i.e., hear their own voice). this paper addresses this knowledge deficit by exploring how manifestations of confirmation bias contributed to the development of ‘echo chambers’ at the height of the covid-19 pandemic. thematic analysis of data collected from 35 participants involved in supply chain information processing forms the basis of a conceptual model of smip and four key cross-cutting propositions emerging from the data that have implications for research and practice.”
Peters, U.. (2021). An argument for egalitarian confirmation bias and against political diversity in academia. Synthese
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s11229-020-02846-2
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“It has recently been suggested that politically motivated cognition leads progressive individuals (e.g., liberals) to form beliefs that underestimate real differences between social groups (e.g., in academic performance) and to process information selectively to support these beliefs and an egalitarian outlook. i contend that this tendency, which i shall call ‘egalitarian confirmation bias’, is often ‘mandevillian’ in nature. that is, while it is epistemically problematic in one’s own cognition, it often has effects that significantly improve other people’s truth tracking, especially that of stigmatized individuals in academia. due to its mandevillian character, egalitarian confirmation bias isn’t only epistemically but also ethically beneficial, as it helps decrease social injustice. moreover, since egalitarian confirmation bias has mandevillian effects especially in academia, and since progressives are particularly likely to display the bias, there is an epistemic reason for maintaining (rather than counteracting) the often-noted political majority of progressives in academia. that is, while many researchers hold that diversity in academia is epistemically beneficial because it helps reduce bias, i argue that precisely because political diversity would help reduce egalitarian confirmation bias, it would in fact in one important sense be epistemically costly.”
Peters, U.. (2022). What Is the Function of Confirmation Bias?. Erkenntnis
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s10670-020-00252-1
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“Confirmation bias is one of the most widely discussed epistemically problematic cognitions, challenging reliable belief formation and the correction of inaccurate views. given its problematic nature, it remains unclear why the bias evolved and is still with us today. to offer an explanation, several philosophers and scientists have argued that the bias is in fact adaptive. i critically discuss three recent proposals of this kind before developing a novel alternative, what i call the ‘reality-matching account’. according to the account, confirmation bias evolved because it helps us influence people and social structures so that they come to match our beliefs about them. this can result in significant developmental and epistemic benefits for us and other people, ensuring that over time we don’t become epistemically disconnected from social reality but can navigate it more easily. while that might not be the only evolved function of confirmation bias, it is an important one that has so far been neglected in the theorizing on the bias.”
Rassin, E.. (2020). Context effect and confirmation bias in criminal fact finding. Legal and Criminological Psychology
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/lcrp.12172
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“Purpose: fact finding is an important part of the job of criminal trial judges and juries. in the literature, several potential pitfalls hindering fact finding have been identified, such as context effects (i.e. an unintended effect of non-probative information on conviction) and confirmation bias (i.e. a skewed selection of and overreliance on guilt-confirming evidence and neglect of exonerating information). in the present study, the effect of irrelevant contextual information on conviction and subsequent confirmation bias was tested. method: a sample of dutch professional criminal trial judges (n = 105) studied a case file and decided on their conviction of the suspect’s guilt, and subsequent investigation endeavours. there were two versions of the file, differing in non-probative details that might affect conviction, such as crime severity and facial appearance of the suspect. results: findings suggest that context information indeed affected conviction, and the subsequent preference for guilt-confirming investigation endeavours. conclusion: professional judges may be susceptible to bias threatening the objectivity of legal decision-making.”
Charness, G., & Dave, C.. (2017). Confirmation bias with motivated beliefs. Games and Economic Behavior
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.geb.2017.02.015
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“We investigate whether the confirmation bias is mitigated in signal-extraction environments by outside financial interests. we include a background strategic consideration leading to ‘motivated beliefs’ for people in one role, as they receive higher equilibrium payoffs in a background game in one of two states, while people in the other role receive the same equilibrium payoffs in both. we find systematic differences in beliefs and our results suggest that players with motivated beliefs deviate less from bayesian updating. however, such players still exhibit a confirmation bias in that they place additional weight on confirming information, in contrast to bayesians.”
Zhao, H., Fu, S., & Chen, X.. (2020). Promoting users’ intention to share online health articles on social media: The role of confirmation bias. Information Processing and Management
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.ipm.2020.102354
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“Nowadays, it is a common practice for healthcare professionals to spread medical knowledge by posting health articles on social media. however, promoting users’ intention to share such articles is challenging because the extent of sharing intention varies in their ehealth literacy (high or low) and the content valence of the article that they are exposed to (positive or negative). this study investigates boundary conditions under which ehealth literacy and content valence help to increase users’ intention to share by introducing a moderating role of confirmation bias—a tendency to prefer information that conforms to their initial beliefs. a 2 (ehealth literacy: high vs. low) × 2 (content valence: positive vs. negative) between-subjects experiment was conducted in a sample of 80 participants. levels of confirmation bias ranging from extreme negative bias to extreme positive bias among the participants were assessed during the experiment. results suggested that: (1) users with a high level of ehealth literacy were more likely to share positive health articles when they had extreme confirmation bias; (2) users with a high level of ehealth literacy were more likely to share negative health articles when they had moderate confirmation bias or no confirmation bias; (3) users with a low level of ehealth literacy were more likely to share health articles regardless of positive or negative content valence when they had moderate positive confirmation bias. this study sheds new light on the role of confirmation bias in users’ health information sharing. also, it offers implications for health information providers who want to increase the visibility of their online health articles: they need to consider readers’ ehealth literacy and confirmation bias when deciding the content valence of the articles.”
Rollwage, M., Loosen, A., Hauser, T. U., Moran, R., Dolan, R. J., & Fleming, S. M.. (2020). Confidence drives a neural confirmation bias. Nature Communications
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-16278-6
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“A prominent source of polarised and entrenched beliefs is confirmation bias, where evidence against one’s position is selectively disregarded. this effect is most starkly evident when opposing parties are highly confident in their decisions. here we combine human magnetoencephalography (meg) with behavioural and neural modelling to identify alterations in post-decisional processing that contribute to the phenomenon of confirmation bias. we show that holding high confidence in a decision leads to a striking modulation of post-decision neural processing, such that integration of confirmatory evidence is amplified while disconfirmatory evidence processing is abolished. we conclude that confidence shapes a selective neural gating for choice-consistent information, reducing the likelihood of changes of mind on the basis of new information. a central role for confidence in shaping the fidelity of evidence accumulation indicates that metacognitive interventions may help ameliorate this pervasive cognitive bias.”
Sleegers, W. W. A., Proulx, T., & van Beest, I.. (2019). Confirmation bias and misconceptions: Pupillometric evidence for a confirmation bias in misconceptions feedback. Biological Psychology
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.biopsycho.2019.03.018
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“It has long been supposed that the confirmation bias plays a role in the prevalence and maintenance of misconceptions. however, this has been supported more by argument than by empirical evidence. in the present paper, we show how different types of belief-feedback evoke physiological responses consistent with the presence of a confirmation bias. participants were presented with misconceptions and indicated whether they believed each misconception to be true or false, as well as how committed they were to the misconception. each response was followed by feedback that was either clear (i.e., ‘correct’ or ‘incorrect’)or ambiguous (i.e., ‘partly correct’ or ‘partly incorrect’). pupillary response to each feedback condition was assessed. the results show an interaction between feedback accuracy and feedback clarity on pupil size. the largest pupil size was found in response to clear disconfirmatory feedback. the smallest pupil size was found in response to both clear and ambiguous confirmatory feedback. crucially, the pupil responded to ambiguous confirmatory feedback as though it were wholly confirmatory. moreover, pupil size in response to ambiguous disconfirmatory feedback was significantly smaller than response to clear disconfirmatory feedback, showing an overall trend towards confirmatory processing in the absence of clear disconfirmation. additionally, we show a moderation by commitment towards the misconception. the greater the commitment, the larger the effect of belief-violating feedback on pupil size. these findings support recent theorizing in the field of misconceptions and, more generally, the field of inconsistency-compensation.”
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