confirmation bias
Preferring agreeable evidence
Confirmation bias is the tendency to favor information that supports what you already believe while ignoring or dismissing evidence that contradicts it.
This mental shortcut affects how people seek out, interpret, and remember information.
Confirmation bias led him to dismiss every study that challenged his views.
The term appears frequently in discussions of politics, science, and decision-making, where the bias can lead to poor judgments and entrenched disagreements.
Biased cognition favoring preferences
- cherry-pickingChoosing only supporting examples
- filter bubbleAlgorithm-created information isolation
- echo chamberSelf-reinforcing information environment
- cognitive dissonanceDiscomfort from contradictory beliefs
groupthink · memory distortion · backfire effect · blind spot · rationalization · wishful thinking · preconception
Unreceptive to new ideas
- dogmaticAsserting opinions as facts
- inflexibleUnable to bend
- obstinateFirmly refusing to yield
- entrenchedFirmly established, resistant to change
unyielding · intransigent · unreceptive · unbending · willful · opinionated · unpersuadable · fixed mindset
motivated reasoning
Biased cognition favoring preferences
- cherry-pickingChoosing only supporting examples
- filter bubbleAlgorithm-created information isolation
- echo chamberSelf-reinforcing information environment
cognitive dissonance · groupthink · memory distortion · backfire effect · blind spot · rationalization · wishful thinking · preconception
cherry-picking
Choosing only supporting examples
closed-minded
Unreceptive to new ideas
- dogmaticAsserting opinions as facts
- inflexibleUnable to bend
- obstinateFirmly refusing to yield
entrenched · unyielding · intransigent · unreceptive · unbending · willful · opinionated · unpersuadable · fixed mindset
- cognitionthinking, reasoning, thought, cognition, remembering
- psychologypsychology, psychologist, therapist, psychiatrist, clinical psychology
- human flawsmistake, error, flaw, fault, failing
- Misconceptionsmisconception, myth, fallacy, false belief, mistaken belief
- behavioral economicsloss aversion, nudge, anchoring, heuristics, mental accounting
- Psychology ResearchStanford prison experiment, Pavlov's dogs, marshmallow test, classical conditioning, operant conditioning
confirmation biasdisconfirmation
Evidence negating a claim
critical thinking · open-mindedness · objectivity · intellectual humility · impartiality
confirmation biasfalsifiability
Susceptibility to disproof
double-blind study · peer review · replication · controlled experiment · scientific method
confirmation biasopen-mindedness
Acceptance of differing viewpoints
intellectual humility · intellectual honesty · fair-mindedness · self-criticism · cognitive flexibility
bias, confirmed, confirmation, unconfirmed, reconfirmed, reconfirmation, disconfirmed, reconfirms