Challenging Confirmation Bias

How can we challenge our own confirmation bias?

Our brains are great at using past experiences to make quick decisions on the fly, but these shortcuts can also lead to bias. "Confirmation bias" is our brain's tendency to seek out information that confirms things we already think we know. Help your students learn to recognize this when they encounter news online, as a way to examine competing opinions and ideas and to avoid drawing questionable conclusions.

Objectives:

• Define confirmation bias and identify why it occurs.
• Explore examples of confirmation bias, particularly related to news and online information.
• Identify strategies for challenging their own confirmation biases.

Vocabulary 

• cognitive bias 
• confirmation bias 
• mnemonic device

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