What confirmation bias does to belief
Launch library · evergreen read
Confirmation bias is the tendency to notice, accept, and remember information that fits what a person already believes, while overlooking or dismissing information that challenges it directly. It is a normal feature of human thinking rather than a personal failing, which is part of why it proves so persistent over time and across different people.
This bias makes people especially vulnerable to misinformation that flatters an existing view, since a claim that confirms what someone already suspects tends to be shared and believed with far less scrutiny than one that directly contradicts it instead, however weak the underlying evidence for it turns out to be.
Guarding against confirmation bias generally means deliberately seeking out sources that challenge a preferred conclusion, and treating a strong emotional sense of vindication as a signal to slow down and check, rather than as evidence supporting the claim in itself without further scrutiny, something worth bearing in mind.