This is important to think about when dealing with JWs or other like minded people. Its something we all have to watch in ourselves but especially with cultists. Do you consider yourself to be very intelligent? The one thing Im not shy about and probably the one thing that most people that know me will tell you is that Im a very intelligent person. But there is a logical fallacy that even the smartest of us can fall into if we are not careful which can keep you from the real truth, even if you can win arguments. Personally, I seek truth over vindication so I make a conscious effort to avoid this. - Jessica Alexander Confirmation bias, also called myside bias, is the tendency to search for, interpret, or prioritize information in a way that confirms ones beliefs or hypotheses.[Note 1][1] It is a type of cognitive bias and a systematic error of inductive reasoning.[2] People display this bias when they gather or remember information selectively, or when they interpret it in a biased way. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs. People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect (a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association between two events or situations). A series of experiments in the 1960s suggested that people are biased toward confirming their existing beliefs. Later work re-interpreted these results as a tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives. In certain situations, this tendency can bias peoples conclusions. Explanations for the observed biases include wishful thinking and the limited human capacity to process information. Another explanation is that people show confirmation bias because they are weighing up the costs of being wrong, rather than investigating in a neutral, scientific way. Confirmation biases contribute to overconfidence in personal beliefs and can maintain or strengthen beliefs in the face of contrary evidence. Poor decisions due to these biases have been found in political and organizational contexts. more----> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
Posted on: Sat, 18 Oct 2014 00:09:33 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015