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Humans actively sample evidence to support prior beliefs
Paula Kaanders1,2, Pradyumna Sepulveda3, Tomas Folke4,5
1Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom.
Elife
|April 11, 2022
Summary
People actively seek information confirming their choices, a bias that strengthens with confidence. This confirmation bias in information gathering leads to sticking with original decisions, even when wrong, highlighting the impact of active information seeking on beliefs.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Decision Science
Background:
- Confirmation bias describes underweighting information contradicting prior choices.
- This study explores if a similar bias influences active information seeking.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate how making a choice affects subsequent information gathering.
- To determine if agency in information acquisition influences decision-making and belief persistence.
Main Methods:
- A perceptual choice task was employed to observe information sampling behavior.
- Participants' information sampling was compared between conditions with and without agency in evidence presentation.
Main Results:
- Participants actively sampled more information supporting their initial choice.
- Higher confidence in the initial choice amplified this information sampling bias.
- The bias diminished when information presentation was experimenter-controlled (fixed sampling).
Conclusions:
- Active information acquisition, driven by choice and confidence, reinforces initial decisions.
- Agency in seeking confirmatory evidence is critical for belief propagation and resistance to revision.
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