Confirmation Bias

This week in class our group was assigned communication theories and the theory that I picked to research was confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is when people would like a certain idea or concept to be true, they start to believe that it is actually true. This occurs from the direct influence of desire on beliefs. For example, if someone is not answering your calls or texts you jump to the conclusion that they are purposely ignoring you, but they could just be busy and that is why they are not answering. This is very common with people who have anxiety. Some negatives of confirmation bias are that once people read something that confirms their beliefs they automatically assume it is right and they stop looking for other information. The news is a good example. People hear things that are going around the world and when they read it in the news, whether is true or not, they automatically believe it is true and stop looking for information that opposes their belief.  People also confirm their belief if they heard it from someone reliable. For example, if your mom tells you something when you are a kid you believe it to be true when you are older because you believe your mom to be a reliable source and you do not look for information that opposes your belief. Confirmation bias restrains people from looking at a situation objectively as well. They will not accept information or listen to the opposing view because they already have the information that confirms what they believe. This affects society because there are always going to be rumors around especially on the news and if a news station, like CNN or Fox, comes out with an article people will believe it and not think about if it is true or not. They will not look for opposing articles because they do not have a reason to believe it is not true. I think younger people believe more stories are true than older people because older people have a perspective on the media world and know how to differentiate between real and fake news. For me, I like to do my research before jumping to conclusions and I like to get all the information before I make a decision, I just think that is the right way to come to a decision. For my generation though, I think most people believe what they see on the news or in an article that the information is true because news stations are reliable, even if they bend the truth or contour your perspective from what they say. I think that everyone should do research before they decide what to believe because you never know what information you are going to find.