Firstly, bias is when we think in a way that leads us to be wrong. It really does not matter who you are, how smart you are, who you voted for, etc., everyone has biases. Confirmation bias is a cognitive bias that involves interpreting and favoring new evidence that confirms someone's existing beliefs, theories, or biases. Confirmation bias is essentially your internal "yes man"
Confirmation bias can be extremely problematic and is still continuininig to evolve today. Philosphers and scientists have come to a conclusion that confirmation bias is adaptive. The reason it is continuing to evolve is because it has influenced us as individuals and the social structures that we are under and we ultimately believe things to be the truth. This can then result as an issue as we are not believing the real truth, just what we want to believe. We are subject to confirmation bias because we are just trying to support our own beliefs. We see a lot of confirmation bias in the media, "fake news", and tend to believe what we are hearing because it is coming from what we believe is a trusted source.
While there are many negatives to confirmation bias is does make our lives a lot easier. We cannot sit around pondering and researching everything that is presented to us. We often have to think and answer right on the spot, we are not going to change our own beliefs to make others happier. Confirmation bias does help us build confidence.
However, the negatives of confirmation bias clearly outweigh the positives. People tend to ignore information that is actually correct because it contradicts their own personal beliefs. A persons perspective will not change based off of evidence and the actual facts. With that being said confirmation bias can lead to very poor decision making. Confirmation bias can "lead to partial, and therewith for the individual less reliable, information processing".
Confirmation bias can be very influential over our lives. To prevent it from occurring you should be looking for evidence that supports your point of view. By looking at your own beliefs you should search and see if you're wrong, not just if you're right. It is extremely important to look at all sides and carefully consider all of the information before stating what you believe to actually be true.
Confirmation bias impacts how we gather our information, but it also influences the way that we recall and further interpret information. It can effect every aspect of our lives due to our own personal opinions. We should focus on evidence, not just our own beliefs.
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