Term of the Day: Confirmation Bias / Normalcy Bias

Confirmation Bias Definition | Investopedia

A psychological phenomenon that explains why people tend to seek out information that confirms their existing opinions and overlook or ignore information that refutes their beliefs. Confirmation bias occurs when people filter out potentially useful facts and opinions that don’t coincide with their preconceived notions. It affects perceptions and decision making in all aspects of our lives and can cause us to make less-than-optimal choices. Seeking out people and publications with different opinions than our own can help us overcome confirmation bias and make better-informed decisions. http://www.web2pointsomething.org/2011/12/19/feature-article-confirmation-bias-in-the-internet-age/ FEATURE ARTICLE: CONFIRMATION BIAS IN THE INTERNET AGE Posted by: Angeladu | | December 19, 2011 Confirmation Bias refers to “a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and look for what confirms ones beliefs, and to ignore, not look for,  or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts ones’ beliefs. Numerous studies have demonstrated that people generally give an excessive amount of value to confirmatory information, that is, to positive or supportive data”. In fact… “A study done at Ohio State in 2009 showed that participants spent 36 percent more time reading articles that agreed with their point of view than those that challenged their beliefs and many didn’t read any opposing view articles at all”.    In Stephen Mills’s article “The Modern Decline in Independent Thinking“, he discusses how the internet influences individuals’ thinking. In particular, Stephen mentions that groupthink causes the problem of confirmation bias, which eliminates the effectiveness of independent thinking. The internet provides a virtual world that allows individuals to share their opinions regardless of the color, race or creed. That is to say, the internet is supposed to stand for freedom of speech. Nevertheless, if people participate in a networked community, their ability of thinking will be diminished.    Accroding to Stephen, he discovers “groupthink inhibits alternatives, minimizes conflict, and enforces conformity. The need to maintain consistency will push you to continue with the same position once it is articulated”. Is it true that groupthink has such power? Let me give you an example… The reason why the internet appeals to us is because we find ideas that resonate with our own thoughts. Suppose you think social media such as Facebook.com fosters transnational communication. And you find a discussion board online which has an identical point of view. Of course, you will be happy to join the group and continue the discussion. As the group becomes larger, the credibility of the initial topic increases. Imagine a random person who is not sure whether social media can develop worldwide communication or not. But he or she happens to open your webpage. A good chance is that the person makes up his or mind to become one of your followers.  Stephen explains this phenomenon in his article, “information availability means we inevitably will suffer from confirmation bias.  We are not becoming more objective and open minded, we are becoming more committed to our existing beliefs”.    I am not sure this whole idea-following thing is working. In the end, Stephen gives us some suggestions about how to become an independent thinker. Let us hear from him… 1. “You have to get out of all the polarizing debates and groups and away from your fellow devotees and do something that doesn’t feel natural”. 2. “You have to do some hard thinking primarily by yourself; without your standard arguments ready and waiting”. 3. “As long as you understand both the power and danger of groups and act accordingly, you can enjoy the benefits and mitigate the dangers of this new connected world.  The only thing have to gain is your own independent mind”. Here is what I recommend…

			Confirmation Bias Definition | Investopedia A psychological phenomenon that explains why people tend to seek out information that confirms their existing opinions and overlook or ignore informati...
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The Internet is the greatest detractor to serious thinking since the invention of television”.

- Leo Chalupa, Neurobiologist, University of California, Davis

Is the Internet Changing the Way You think? The Net’s Impact on Our Minds andFuture. Edited by John Brokman. (New York: Harper Perennial, 2011).

   Internet has already become an inevitable part of our life. I think the best advantage that we take from the internet is efficiency. The internet saves us a lot of time in finding things. Say a student wants to write an essay about earthquake. She opens Google.com and types in the word earthquake. Less than one second, the internet offers her 167,000,000 results that relate to the earthquake topic. Then, what happens next? Click, click, click… She gets what she wants by simply controlling her mouse instead of spending hours in a library. I believe most of us have the same experience in our life. It is just so convenient that we search whatever we want to know on the internet. However, my question is do you take whatever appears on the internet for granted? or, do you judge the credibility of any arguments made on the internet?

   

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And another one of the big problems that we are facing is something called "normalcy bias".  The following is how Wikipedia defines it...

The normalcy bias, or normality bias, refers to a mental state people enter when facing a disaster. It causes people to underestimate both the possibility of a disaster occurring and its possible effects. This often results in situations where people fail to adequately prepare for a disaster, and on a larger scale, the failure of governments to include the populace in its disaster preparations. The assumption that is made in the case of the normalcy bias is that since a disaster never has occurred then it never will occur. It also results in the inability of people to cope with a disaster once it occurs. People with a normalcy bias have difficulties reacting to something they have not experienced before. People also tend to interpret warnings in the most optimistic way possible, seizing on any ambiguities to infer a less serious situation.