Confirmation Bias Research Paper

Our perception in regards to reality is frequently “in the hands of” of our community, and we form our beliefs in regards to what is real is through the media. Therefore, the documentary “We Need to Talk about Sandy Hook” by Sofia Small storm and the film “Wag the Dog,” by Barry Levinson are both examples of how the media tries to deceive people. The documentary has deceived the pubic into believing that the Sandy Hook Massacres did exist, and Wag the Dog tries to trick the public into believing that the United States will be at war. Both films use deceptions that are planned by the government to deceive the public for their own needs. Therefore, although people rely on media for legitimate information, they never know the truth unless it was experienced first hand.

The news, even though it may be broadcasting the real facts, may show videos or just talk about the subject so much that viewers are more scared than they need to be. They essentially “overdo” it, and leave Americans and others with different ideas in their minds than they need to have. This idea of sensationalism is a big problem with the situation on 9-11, and is used in it and other conspiracies to convince people of ridiculous notions.

Confirmation bias is the tendency for a person to search for information that solely helps support their opinion or hypothesis. For example, I’ve observed the media doing this a lot. One example that’s trending now, is that Kylie Jenner is pregnant. The media keeps going on and on about it, although none of the family members have confirmed this. The media seems to keep bringing to light the fact that she’s wearing baggy clothes, buying a box of donuts, or having a party in her backyard, which they say was her baby shower. They media ignores the fact that she’s a teenager and lots of teenagers eat unhealthy. Or the fact that she always hosts lots of different events for other people at her house, which we see on their show. The media

Throughout history, and still today, Americans have looked to popular media outlets to stay up to date on the current issues our nation is involved in. Many Americans take the news reported at face value instead of digging deeper than the headlines to do a little of their own research. A clear majority of those Americans believe if they read it in the newspaper or see it on social media, it must be true. However, the media is notorious for manipulating the facts in order to advance the American government’s agenda. A manipulating media circuit is nothing new. An example of this is the USS Greer incident. Multiple media reports helped advanced President Roosevelt’s desire to engage in war by publishing inaccurate reports from the September 4, 1942 incident.

The perpetuation of misinformation can be very difficult to correct and may have lasting effects even after it is discredited. For instance, if an audience is reliant on the information provided by the media to make an informative decision about a topic involving their morals, the validity of the author’s claims will determine the mass majority of their decisions they make in the future. As a result, false information may continue to influence beliefs and attitudes even after being debunked if it is not replaced by an alternate causal explanation.

Ignorance due to inability to spot biased is a monumental issue in the U.S. In 1984, people did not have an option on who or what to believe. They were all required to watch a Two Minute Hate so they would dislike what the Party wanted them to dislike. The people could only see what the Party wanted them to see as no other channels they existed. In fact, the telescreens could not be shut off at all. Constant exposure to the Party’s beliefs caused people to be biased towards the government’s views. In this country, people hear, watch, and absorb news every day, but they do not always see or hear the presented bias. For example, Fox News is conservative-leaning and MSNBC is more liberal (Garrett 2&3). People who only watch one news channel without acknowledging or spotting the bias tend to accept what they hear as fact without a second thought. Depending on where information is collected or heard, the person forms opinions based on bias rather than facts without realizing the error in their wapithes and become easy to manipulation occurs.

As Pitts said from the article, “We admit no ideas that do not confirm us, hear no voice that does not echo us, sift out all information that does not validate what we wish to believe”. Therefore, people are becoming prevented from thinking in a logical, “critical” way they don’t just simply believe what isn’t correct according to their way of thinking. When we listen to information-provider like radio and TV, we realized that we are being estranged because of our own way of thinking, “alienated” even from the simplest truth. This can lead us into believing false facts and we can do nothing but to believe them. The falsities outbreak is a real danger to the modern world because we are always advancing in modern

Just by looking at a recent event that has been in the news this can be seen. Looking at the recent event from Fox News and the Washington Post of the Orlando shooting the form in which the information is portrayed has an interesting impact on the person viewing it. The video on Fox News was made in a way to keep your attention having details such as including a woman with blond hair to help portray the news, strong emotions partly portrayed through the serious attitudes of the conveyors, and a short length. All of these aspects were put in for a reason, to keep our interest. If it doesn’t then we will simply stop watching it because of our short attention spans. Like Postman would say it was for entertainment. There was nothing about the given situation that could be connected to our lives. The article on the Washington Post however was different. Even though there was still not really anything that could be taken to connect with one's personal life it was not portrayed in quit as enrapturing a form. There were many facts and quotes given by different professionals making it a lot less interesting to take in and harder to keep reading. Even though both news organizations still centered on the aspect of entertainment the different forms in which the information was given gave a different turn on the similar information

Most of us like to imagine our beliefs and opinions are logical and objective; however, the reality is that we tend to pay more attention to the information which supports our original ideas. And at the same time, we are trying to ignore the information which despites us. This process is called confirmation bias, and it exists in our daily lives.

I believe one of the most detrimental aspects of modern society is our polarization to media sources that feed us information we want to hear, information that we agree with. I think this is a side effect of living in a world where information is made instantly available to us. We can easily search the internet for information we want to see, and most importantly, we can hear or read that information from a perspective which we support. I believe this is one of the most prevalent examples of confirmation trap, and it is dangerous to us as a society because it can divide us apart.

I've opened my eyes to how receptive I am to the propaganda perpetuated by mass media on topics about which I’m not well informed. I learned about the propaganda model early in school but rarely did I connect that with current events; for example, the irrational fear that vaccines cause Autism. Regardless of having no scientific evidence, this preposterous belief was claimed to be fact by the mass media and it resulted in fearful parents. These parents had vested their trust in the news and were therefore unknowingly putting their children at risk by refusing to vaccinate them, directly resulting in a dramatic increase of whooping cough, leading to the death of innocent

Whom should we listen to? The best person to listen to is the actual source, to hear the information from the individual at hand and if it’s not a person and it’s a specific topic to gather information about the subject yourself. Majority of those who have been taught to understand what are reliable sources and what unreliable understand where to get information if needed. The issue is that people are disregarding the proper way of getting reliable and factual information. People rather just be lazy and have someone tell it to them ten to dig a lot deeper to gather the information that they need to form their own thoughts and opinions about anything. There is a newspaper about fake news from Jeff Parsons and the Researchers at the University of Cambridge speaking about an experiment to preemptively fake news so that they can rid people of any misinformation (Parsons, How to stop fake news).. The experiment involved 2,000 U.S. residents. Dr. Sander Van Der Linden, the lead author of the study explained, “The idea is to provide a cognitive repertoire that helps build up resistance to misinformation, so the next time people come across it they are less susceptible (Parsons, How to stop fake news).” This was a great experiment and a very necessary experiment because of the fake news and the impact it has in our society we need to figure out to stop it and to also make sure that we are

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.

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 null hypothesis stated that birds have no seed preference, so therefore they will eat the same amount of each of the seed types and the alternate hypothesis stated that if the bird have a seed preference, then they would choose the black oil seed because they were the easiest to open, contained lots of fat, and were small enough for smaller beaked birds to eat. The null hypothesis was rejected because p value, 3.2 x 〖10〗^(-27), was less than the alpha value, .05, therefore, the alternate hypothesis was accepted. Entering the expected values from the calculations into the Chi Square Test, the p value was found which resulted in the rejection of the Ho hypothesis. The Ha hypothesis was accepted because the birds ate 59 black oil seeds, which