Confirmation Bias: Strengthening Beliefs and Affecting Lives - Essay Sample

Introduction

Confirmation bias is the proneness to search for interpreting and recall information in a way that confirms the strength of one personal belief. People or persons display it when they collect or remember information selectively or when its interpreted in favor of Someone or Something. Confirmation biases bring about overconfidence in personal beliefs. Confirmation bias also involves favoring information that confirms other previous beliefs; it can also affect our day to day lives if we strongly believe in them (Althubaiti, 2016). By failing to interpret information in an unbiased way, it can lead to misleading information collected. Therefore, we need to be cautious of the data we collect since it can either be positive or negative information.

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Importance of Confirmation Bias

Confirmation bias is essential to research because it leads people to hold firm beliefs, thus giving more weight to the information that supports their beliefs (Althubaiti, 2016). People may have overconfident information in their beliefs because they have brought together all the evidence to support them. In research, scientists often demonstrate confirmation bias when they are conducting their own bias when they selectively analyze data and that it allows them to confirm and record their findings (Rossmo & Pollock, 2019). Confirmation bias prevents us from looking at the situations objectively, and it can also alter our decisions, thus leading us to make poor choices. It may also cloud the judgment of the researcher, hiding them from the right information, or showing them a different perspective of the information given.

Minimization of Effects of Confirmation Bias

The effects of confirmation bias can be minimized by identifying the biases, pursue empathy, identification of ambiguity (Rossmo & Pollock, 2019). Always read from all angles and direction, also hire an outsider who will direct you and has more experience in the field of study. The researcher always has to evaluate the impressions of the respondents and challenge pre-existing assumptions (Van Woensel, 2019). It can also be minimized by the invention of ways to seek out information from a wide range of sources and also discuss your thoughts with others and also have multiple perspectives. One has to understand the client's objectives and also monitor the information to gain an overall understanding of the findings.

Information Bias

One should always choose an appropriate study design with well-designed ways of data collection and storage. It also includes choosing the right field to study research, the area, and the clients to retrieve the information (Van Woensel, 2019). One should always choose the appropriate study and information to be collected.

The use of appropriate standard measurement instruments. It includes the use of questionnaires, measuring devices, for example, a High Blood Pressure machine. The appropriate standard instruments give positive information that can be relied on and used for future use.

The use of multiple resources of information. Like the use of questionnaires, in which they should favor closed, precise questions and avoid open-ended quizzes (Van Woensel, 2019). One should standardize the interviewers' techniques to ask questions. This will help gather the right information by use of direct measurements, registries, and case records.

Collection of information from groups that can be compared. The sources can be used to validate each other but must be used for every subject. Some of the groups may be exposed while the others may not be this will bring about confusion in the information given by the subjects.

An important strategy is also to minimize information bias is to ensure that blinding intervention status is maintained while the outcomes are measured and always recorded. If it is not possible, then the subjects should blind to the leading theory of the research. The information collected should be collected prospectively, and questions posed should be neutrally and logical.

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The only thing that I was struggling with is how to use correctly use citation. I have read the APA manual and also googled how it is done and how to properly use in-text citations, but I could not do so. And my the research topic, I picked the topic that I was much interested in, but it is a very known topic. Therefore, I had to think of ways to narrow it down into specific points to help me with my research question, and Something about the confirmation bias acted as an eye-opener and made me understand the topic more easily

Students Response On The Shford Student Portal

Hi Brian,

I strongly agree since we are all humans and bound to making mistakes or, in other words doing countless crimes. Capital punishment should be issued if need be but not to leave countless bodies in the name of justice. Some may have committed crime that is beyond human understanding, and the only solution would be the law to pass out a Capital Punishment, but they also deserve a second chance.

References

Althubaiti, A. (2016). Information bias in health research: Definition, pitfalls, and adjustment methods. Journal of Multidisciplinary Healthcare, 211. https://doi.org/10.2147/jmdh.s104807

Rossmo, K., & Pollock, J. (2019). Confirmation bias and other systemic causes of wrongful convictions: A Sentinel events perspective. SSRN Electronic Journal. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3413922

Van Woensel, L. (2019). How bias distorts evidence and its assessment. A Bias Radar for Responsible Policy-Making, 17-37. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32126-0_2