Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek, interpret, favor, and remember information that supports prior beliefs, values, or decisions. It can involve selecting supportive information, overlooking contrary material, or treating ambiguous evidence as confirmation. The bias is especially strong for desired outcomes, emotional issues, and entrenched beliefs. It has been linked to attitude polarization, belief perseverance, primacy effects, and illusory correlations, and can contribute to flawed decisions in political, organizational, financial, scientific, medical, and investigative contexts.

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Also called

Confirmatory bias, myside bias, or congeniality bias

Classification

Cognitive bias

Stronger when

Outcomes are desired, issues are emotionally charged, or beliefs are deeply entrenched