Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias Bias confirming existing attitudes Confirmation bias (also confirmatory bias, myside bias,[a] or congeniality bias[2]) is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values.[3] 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. Biased search for information, biased interpretation of this information, and biased memory recall, have been invoked to explain four specific effects: A series of psychological experiments in the 1960s suggested that people are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs. Flawed decisions due to confirmation bias have been found in a wide range of political, organizational, financial and scientific contexts. [edit]

Lucid Dreaming Frequently Asked Questions Answered by The Lucidity Institute Version 2.4 © Lucidity Institute (contact us) This FAQ is a brief introduction to lucid dreaming: what it is, how to do it, and what can be done with it. There are several excellent sources of information on lucid dreaming, the most reliable and extensive of which is the Lucidity Institute website ( Other sources are listed below. "I first heard of lucid dreaming in April of 1982, when I took a course from Dr. 3.4 WHAT TECHNOLOGY IS AVAILABLE TO ASSIST LUCID DREAMING TRAINING? confirmation bias Confirmation bias refers to a type of selective thinking whereby one tends to notice and to look for what confirms one's beliefs, and to ignore, not look for, or undervalue the relevance of what contradicts one's beliefs. For example, if you believe that during a full moon there is an increase in admissions to the emergency room where you work, you will take notice of admissions during a full moon, but be inattentive to the moon when admissions occur during other nights of the month. A tendency to do this over time unjustifiably strengthens your belief in the relationship between the full moon and accidents and other lunar effects. This tendency to give more attention and weight to data that support our beliefs than we do to contrary data is especially pernicious when our beliefs are little more than prejudices. Numerous studies have demonstrated that people generally give an excessive amount of value to confirmatory information, that is, to positive or supportive data. reader comments

The Ten Most Revealing Psych Experiments Psychology is the study of the human mind and mental processes in relation to human behaviors - human nature. Due to its subject matter, psychology is not considered a 'hard' science, even though psychologists do experiment and publish their findings in respected journals. Some of the experiments psychologists have conducted over the years reveal things about the way we humans think and behave that we might not want to embrace, but which can at least help keep us humble. That's something. 1. The Robbers Cave Experiment is a classic social psychology experiment conducted with two groups of 11-year old boys at a state park in Oklahoma, and demonstrates just how easily an exclusive group identity is adopted and how quickly the group can degenerate into prejudice and antagonism toward outsiders. Researcher Muzafer Sherif actually conducted a series of 3 experiments. 2. The prisoners rebelled on the second day, and the reaction of the guards was swift and brutal. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

Confirmation bias From Citizendium, the Citizens' Compendium Confirmation bias is a type of selective, wishful thinking, and an example of cognitive dissonance, where a person searches for or interprets evidence or information that matches their existing beliefs or predictions and ignores information that contradicts this. In short: cherry picking your evidence to match your conclusion. It is at the root of many types of pseudoscience and pseudohistory. The technique of cold reading, combined with the Forer effect, is an example of how a person may use someone's confirmation bias - a person who goes to a psychic or spiritualist session is going to want, often desperately, to hear from their deceased friends and relatives, and are quite willing to suspend their disbelief and ignore mistakes because of the emotional importance the 'hits' have.

Cognitive dissonance In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.[1][2] Leon Festinger's theory of cognitive dissonance focuses on how humans strive for internal consistency. When inconsistency (dissonance) is experienced, individuals tend to become psychologically uncomfortable and they are motivated to attempt to reduce this dissonance, as well as actively avoiding situations and information which are likely to increase it.[1] Relationship between cognitions[edit] Individuals can adjust their attitudes or actions in various ways. Consonant relationship – Two cognitions/actions that are consistent with one another (e.g., not wanting to get intoxicated while out, then ordering water instead of alcohol) Magnitude of dissonance[edit] Reducing[edit] Theory and research[edit] Examples[edit] E.