Confirmation Bias

By definition, confirmation bias is the tendency to interpret new evidence as confirmation of one's existing beliefs or theories. It is a biased approach to decision making that is often times unintentional. When people go to look for new information or information regarding a specific topic, they often only go to sources that are known to be similar to their beliefs. Once people have formed an opinion about an issue or topic, they have more difficulty processing new information in an unbiased manner.

Confirmation bias often times occurs when there is an issue that is either highly important to a person or if the issue is self-relevant for them. This is because if it is that important to a person, they are highly likely to only process information that supports their own beliefs. On the opposite end, if a person is emotionally distant from an issue, they are more likely to rationally process the information without a bias.

When people participate in confirmation bias, they often ignore information that does not align perfectly with their beliefs. This is because it is an adaptive behavior that all humans take part in. As humans, it is traditionally known that people do not want to admit that they were wrong. This is extremely prevalent if there is a topic or issue that they relate to often times people will disregard any information that proves them wrong, and they will stick to just the information that supports their ideals. 

There are many negatives to confirmation bias. The biggest one is that it can lead to people holding extremely strongly to half beliefs due to only knowing one side of a story. Another one that is extremely dangerous is making risky decisions due to the fact that overlooking crucial details and information that can contradict one's beliefs can result in high risk implications. Lastly, another negative is that people often overlook important information. Overlooking information can be detrimental in many different environments and can lead to bad things happening to people, and the world around them.

As for how confirmation bias applies to people's personal lives, there are many different ways.

The first way is through people's jobs or careers. First, when doctors have a hunch on what a patient's diagnosis will be when they first examine them, it can be hard for doctors to admit that they were wrong in order to correctly diagnose the patient. Secondly, in the context of the law, Judges and jurors tend to develop an opinion on the defendant before all of the information is known. This interferes with their ability to process new information that can emerge in a trial and can lead to unjust verdicts.

As for how this can apply to all people: the news. With the news, people tend to rely solely on specific platforms for all of their news because they know that it aligns with their views and outlooks on politics and other issues. An example of this is often seen with Fox News and CNN.