Since it’s so easy to fall prey to them, it’s no surprise cognitive biases are rampant in politics.
The most common bias in politics is the confirmation basis. The confirmation bias is the tendency to look for or interpret information in a way that confirms preexisting beliefs or assumptions. We not only don’t look for information which might disprove our bias, but we also ignore any evidence which might contradict it.
The rise of personalization on the web – and especially on social media – has led to filter bubbles which hide information contrary to our current perspective and reinforce stereotypes. Research has shown this has led to increased polarization in politics and more pronounced ideological silos.
In an experiment with more than 3000 participants with varying backgrounds, researchers asked participants to either support or oppose a sociopolitical issue and then presented them with compelling conflicting evidence. Despite the new information, less than 20% changed their stance. Furthermore, participants who didn’t change their stance became even more confident in their point of view. This is the confirmation bias at work.
There are many other cognitive biases which impact politics. A study of decision making in far left-wing and far right-wing Indian political parties showed that members of parties leveraged confirmation bias, in-group favoritism, the bandwagon effect, and negativity bias to win elections. This report suggests 11 separate cognitive biases influence politics including the authority bias, group think, halo effect, and the false consensus effect.
To compound this issue, the blind spot bias is the tendency for us to believe our own judgments are less susceptible to bias than others. Increased awareness of these biases doesn’t necessarily reduce them. Highly educated, self-aware mental health professionals rated their own susceptibility to specific cognitive biases as less than that of their peers.
Practically, the bias blind spot leads to an overconfidence in our ability to detect misleading or inaccurate information. This decreases the likelihood we fact check or look for conflicting information which, in turn, makes us less willing to change our point of view and more likely to spread false information.
Cognitive biases create a vicious circle which is almost impossible to break out of. Eventually there will be nothing we all agree on.
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