People tend to refer to information congruent with their preexisting attitudes whether or not the information is factual

Arizona State University

Confirmation bias is the cognitive tendency to selectively focus on cases that validate our pre-existing intuitive beliefs while actively disregarding or forgetting cases that contradict them. This mental shortcut leads individuals to reinforce incorrect assumptions by ignoring disconfirming evidence.

Confirmation Bias

Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., Fenton, O., & Martin, K. (2014). Do people keep believing because they want to? Preexisting attitudes and the continued influence of misinformation. Memory & Cognition, 42(2), 292-304. http://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-013-0358-x

Do people keep believing because they want to? Preexisting attitudes and the continued influence of misinformation

Attitude Congruent Information

An example of confirmation bias is the widespread intuitive belief that women are more talkative than men. Once someone adopts this belief, they are likely to selectively notice and remember talkative women and silent men, while ignoring or quickly forgetting instances of silent women and talkative men.

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