Symptoms of Confirmation Bias

I certainly was in the right
--Pink Floyd

Confirmation bias, or selective reasoning, is accepting data that supports one's view of the world while rejecting data that oppose that worldview. Because individuals generally prefer pleasure over pain--including the pleasure of believing that they are 'correct'--confirmation bias is likely to inflict all people to some degree.

Confirmation bias can be seen as a product of fast thinking, where individuals refuse to subject cognitions through the rigor of slower, deliberate thought processes. It is the enemy of critical thinking.

Symptoms of confirmation bias include:

Rendering judgment on complex or distant situations quickly.

Consumption of institutional media sources.

Significant group affiliations.

Paying attention to likes/dislikes, friending, and pageview statistics on social media.

Reluctance to review data that appear in conflict with a hypothesis.

Failure to explain why opposing viewpoints or data are invalid or do not apply.

Arguments peppered with "I think" or "I feel" rather than "the data show."

Disounting reason in favor of sophistry or mysticism.

Basing one's argument on slant.

Discounting probling questions in favor of declarative statements.

Failure to define key terms in an argument.

Preferring to cite secondary analysis of others rather than personally engaging in primary analysis.

Thinking other people and their associations are biased but you and your associations are not.

Because human beings possess self awareness, we can endeavor to reduce the extent to which confirmation bias inflicts our decision processes.