Backfire Effect Vs. Confirmation Bias

The belief-bias effect is when people make judgments based on prior beliefs and general knowledge, rather than on the rules of logic. For example, when a student takes a history test and answers short-answer questions based on their prior beliefs and general knowledge about the time period, rather than thinking about the course material’s relation to the test. To maximize people’s abilities to effectively reason or make decisions, students should be taught about the belief-bias effect, so that they make fewer errors when trying to answer questions.

“What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.” -Elie Wiesel

A domino effect: the consequence of one event setting off a chain of similar events; history is full of them. In 1914, countries around the world began to become involved in one of the most well-known wars in history, World War I. There is not just one single cause to this “Great War”, which could have been avoided, rather there are multiple. During this time tensions were high, especially after the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife. Austria-Hungary, fueled with anger towards Serbia for the killings, saw this act as an opportunity to teach Serbia a lesson and eliminate any future Serbian threats. However this was an age of alliances, fighting one country also meant war with

Substantial burden to individuals and communities are outcomes of the most occurring disorder within the United States, anxiety disorder. Even though effective treatments for anxiety disorders have been developed, there has been extensively less focus on intervention techniques directed at the betterment regarding anxiety-related risks and care factors (Keough & Schmidt, 2012). Advances in prevention programs for anxiety and its disorders are presently in its early stage of development. On July 11, 2014, a study was conducted to test an adaptation of a Cognitive Bias Modification program to minimize anxiousness predisposition. It evaluated the causal relationships between rendering preconception of physiological cues, anxiety sensitivity,

Confirmation bias is a primary issue that prevents people from perceiving the world objectively. The phenomenon occurs when an individual chooses to expose themselves only to media and information that confirms a personally held belief rather than consider another side of the argument. In the media age we are currently in, it is remarkably uncomplicated to find countless arguments on one side of a controversial debate to buttress one’s own existing beliefs; we come to believe in a false consensus of our beliefs due to our limited exposure to other opinions. Consequently, especially in the United States due to having gone through an incredibly sensationalized presidential election, we are in a time somewhat marked by increased polarization.

A cognitive bias in which people will have the tendency to believe that a statement, idea, or information is accurate if it is either positive, meaningful, or if it’s personally addressed to them. Many people believe in biorhythms, horoscopes iridology, cold reading, and tarot cards because they appear to have the solution to their problems which is meaningful. In addition, many mediums and palm readers depend on subjective validation because it is easy to convince others that they are linked to unrelated events. (Pages 120, 122-123).

In the podcast titled Cognitive Dissonance (2011), Dr. Carol Tavris, the author of Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions, and Hurtful Acts, discusses the relationship between psychology and neuroscience, in addition to discussing cognitive dissonance. As Dr. Tavris explains, cognitive dissonance theory is the mental discomfort we feel whenever two ideas are conflicted with one another, causing discomfort that we attempt to reduce cognitively (Campbell & Tavris, 2011). Moreover, dissonance can increase dependent upon, how important the decision is, how strongly the dissonant thoughts conflict, and our ability to rationalize and justify the conflict (Cognitive dissonance, 2016). As a future psychologist,

Confirmation bias is a tendency of people to prefer information that reinforces a thought or believe that they have. People demonstrate this bias when they retain information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotional issues and for deeply rooted beliefs. (Science Daily)

The confirmation bias is the tendency to search for information that confirms our ideas and beliefs. This arises from our eargences to get a good solution. Often times most peopel seek evidence that supports thier ideas more readily than they search for facts that might refute them. Karen for example is using examples from the past regarding the election and who has won to demonstarte that her brother will win. "Karen your can't be serious. What about the issues, such as school poilces and procedures?" "Those issues don't matter. Regina Hoyt won becauseh she was populr last year. The only real issue is popularoty." This is an example of how Karen is searching for information that confirms her ideas that he brother will win the election because

Confirmation bias occurs from the direct influence of desire on beliefs. When people would like a certain idea/concept to be true, they end up believing it to be true. People tend to be motivated by wishful thinking. This error leads the individual to stop gathering information when the evidence gathered so far confirms the views (prejudices) one would like to be true (Heshmat, 2015). Therefore, is very important for people to use their critical thinking skills. Good critical thinking skills required that we evaluate evidence thoroughly and be aware of social and cognitive errors in our thinking to effectively evaluate any given situation. And avoid jumping to a conclusion or acting quickly based on preconceived ideas (Boss,

Biases. I realized that knowing about biases does not protect me against them. This assignment made me recognize how easily the biases (in my case, the confirmation bias) can undermine my judgment, perception, and reasoning. Based on the consumer’s physical attributes and the way he presented himself, I formed an initial belief and an expectation that Rodney had a positive self-concept. Even when the test results clearly indicated that the consumer’s view of himself was negative, I was still committed to my cognitive impression and I recalculated the scores twice, to make sure I had not made an error and misconstrued his profile.

Experts in the same discipline typically agree with one another as they have the same facts and knowledge. However, when experts disagree with one another in the same discipline, it may cause contradiction between experts. Disagreements come in many different forms such as different opinions, facts, how one perceive things and one’s standard of right or wrong. In certain disciplines, such as history and art are filled with a multitude of disagreement as the two area of discipline are bias and subjective. Thus, different experts may see things differently in one discipline which can also be called area of knowledge. In history, self-serving bias and historical revisionism can alter the interpretation of evidence and influence the perspective

According to College for America (2015) confirmation bias make people tend to read information that confirms what they believe to be true. While cognitive dissonance is described as the human inability to tolerate evidence which shows the opposite of what they believe to be true.

The bystander effect is a fascinating psychological phenomenon in which people are less likely to lend support or aid to someone in need if there are other people present. The bystander effect seems ruthless and unethical, but it is a common reaction of many people when a stressful situation arises. The cause of it is likely a combination of several social forces. Most notably, the common scapegoat is “someone else will help”. This defers all feelings of responsibility and distances the bystander from the situation that they are observing. This is only one of the contributing forces that create this lurking danger of the bystander effect. This arises the important question of, how do we minimize its effect?

The focus of this paper is to determine how cognitive dissonance affects our decisions, and how one can reduce the impacts of cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance is a phenomenon which occurs when two cognitions are conflicting. In choosing one option over the other, people tend to question if they made the right decision. There are several strategies to resolve cognitive dissonance. Altering the conflicting cognition, altering the importance of the conflicting cognition and adding additional positive cognitions to outweigh the conflicting ones are ways to resolve cognitive dissonance. The results of these dissonance reduction strategies all typically result in a stronger attribution with the option that was chosen, and the unchosen alternative is more negatively attributed.