Confirmation bias

• P.C. Wason’s number sequence game. Here is a New York Times’ interactive puzzle.

You are not so smart

“You seek out safe havens for your ideology, friends and coworkers of like mind and attitude, media outlets guaranteed to play nice. Whenever your opinions or beliefs are so intertwined with your self-image you couldn’t pull them away without damaging your core concepts of self, you avoid situations which may cause harm to those beliefs.”

You are not so smart

"Punditry is a whole industry built on confirmation bias. Rush Limbaugh and Keith Olbermann, Glenn Beck and Arianna Huffington, Rachel Maddow and Ann Coulter – these people provide fuel for beliefs, they pre-filter the world to match existing world-views. If their filter is like your filter, you love them. If it isn’t, you hate them.

Whether or not pundits are telling the truth, or vetting their opinions, or thoroughly researching their topics is all beside the point. You watch them not for information, but for confirmation."

You are not so smart

“Over time, by never seeking the antithetical, through accumulating subscriptions to magazines, stacks of books and hours of television, you can become so confident in your world-view no one could dissuade you.”

Confirmation bias activity 2

• Wason’s Four-Card Task. Vote and explain.

The backfire effect

• Oatmeal’s in-class version

  • Oatmeal’s original version

• You’re not so smart podcasts.

  • When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions
  • The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes’ Steadfast Factual Adherence

• Why facts won’t help you win arguments

How do we reason

There is a gap between how our normative theories say we should reason, and how we in fact reason. [from CTA]

Why do we believe things that aren’t true? | Philip Fernbach.

Acknowledgement

This section is taken from You Are Not so Smart.