PHIL 1002 / CYM 1002: Confirmation Bias, Debiasing Strategies, and Cognitive Phenomena

Comprehensive practice flashcards defining core vocabulary, psychological studies, debiasing strategies, and neurological phenomena from the lecture material.

Confirmation Bias

The unconscious tendency to notice, focus on, search for, and give greater credence to evidence that aligns with pre-existing or preferred beliefs, while ignoring or discounting contradicting evidence.

Selective Exposure

A process of filtering information in which an individual actively avoids challenging or contradictory information to prevent cognitive dissonance.

Selective Perception

A cognitive stage where an individual is exposed to information that conflicts with existing beliefs but interprets and distorts that information in a manner that affirms their pre-existing views.

Selective Retention

The cognitive tendency to remember information that is consistent with what one already believes to be true while forgetting or disregarding contradictory evidence.

Cognitive Dissonance

The psychological discomfort associated with encountering evidence, ideas, or events that violate an individual's pre-existing beliefs.

Heuristic

A mental shortcut used for fast, efficient decision-making that takes the path of least resistance, hypothesized by evolutionary psychologists to originate from survival instincts under uncertainty.

Group Polarization

The tendency for discussion among group members who hold similar opinions to amplify shared views, causing the group as a whole to adopt stances that are far more extreme than members' initial positions.

Groupthink

A group-level decision-making distortion where group coherence and social harmony are prioritized above critical appraisal, suppressing disagreement and impeding optimal choices.

Stanford Capital Punishment Study (1979)

A study conducted by Lord, Ross, and Lepper where participants presented with two fictitious, statistically balanced studies on capital punishment deterrence interpreted the data as validating their own prior beliefs, resulting in increased attitude polarization.

Filter Bubble

A term coined by internet activist Eli Pariser describing the algorithmic isolation that occurs when platforms present users only with preferred content while systematically excluding disconfirming information.

George Loewenstein's Debiasing Experiment

An experimental study where law students were randomly assigned to opposing legal perspectives (litigant vs. defendant) and offered a monetary incentive to reach a fair settlement, revealing that assignment alone produced entrenched bias and disagreement.

Perspective-Taking Intervention (Loewenstein)

An unsuccessful debiasing strategy where subjects were asked to imagine the opposing party's point of view; this produced a negative outcome by making participants more biased as they mentally rehearsed counter-arguments.

Self-Weakness Analysis Intervention (Loewenstein)

The only effective debiasing condition in Loewenstein's experiments, in which subjects read about self-serving bias and then wrote down the greatest weaknesses in their own assigned position.

Motivated Reasoning

The underlying mental state of wanting a specific conclusion or belief to be true, which actively directs and fuels confirmation bias.

"Can I Believe It?" vs. "Must I Believe It?"

The contrasting standards of evidence we apply depending on desirability: requiring minimal evidence ("Can I believe it?") for preferred conclusions, but demanding insurmountable proof ("Must I believe it?") before accepting unwelcome truths.

"Doing Your Own Research" Study (2023)

A survey of approximately 1,000 subjects demonstrating that individuals who strongly agreed that independent research is equivalent or superior to relying on experts held less accurate beliefs about Covid.

Thioamine Acetylase (TAA) Deficiency Test

An experimental procedure using a reactive strip that takes approximately 20 seconds to change color, demonstrating that individuals who receive an unfavorable health diagnosis will wait longer and scrutinize the test more intensely.

Blindsight

A rare neurological condition in which an individual has no conscious visual experience yet can unconsciously detect certain visual stimuli, such as motion, hard edges, or color (e.g., catching a thrown tennis ball out of mid-air).

Anton-Babinski Syndrome

A rare neurological condition where a patient who is completely and utterly blind persistently denies their blindness and rapidly invents excuses or bizarre explanations for mistakes caused by lack of vision.

Confabulation

The psychological process of unconsciously fabricating plausible-seeming explanations, cover-stories, or reasons for one's actions, feelings, or conclusions, and genuinely believing the invented story.

Unconscious Mind

The cognitive domain where perceptions, decisions, and evaluations occur outside conscious awareness, serving as the primary source for heuristics, biases, and cognitive illusions.