What Is the Function of Confirmation Bias?

In the paper

“Moreover, they subsequently tended to justify positions they thought they held despite just having chosen the opposite.”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The Introduction describes participants explaining survey answers after two statements were secretly reversed. The Results (Accepted Trials) report that manipulated verbal explanations supported the opposite of participants’ original positions; 53% argued unequivocally for the opposite position in at least one manipulated trial. (LLM, conf=0.94)

  cites Hall et al. (2012) source

In the paper

“Surprisingly, 69% of the study participants failed to detect at least one of the changes.”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The Results (‘Corrected Trials’) state that 69% of participants accepted at least one of two altered statement/rating relations. The Methods (‘Measures’) define accepted trials as showing no sign that participants noticed the reversal, supporting the paraphrase that they failed to detect at least one change. (LLM, conf=0.94)

  cites Hall et al. (2012) source

In the paper

“In fueling one-sided information processing to support one's own view, the bias makes people less able to anticipate and adequately respond to their interlocutor's point of view (Dutilh Novaes 2018: 520).”

What the sources say

• Supported

  In §3.2, Dutilh Novaes calls myside bias a form of “mind-reading failure” and emphasizes the importance of appreciating an interlocutor’s perspective. She also argues that anticipating an audience’s responses helps an arguer tailor their arguments. These passages support the paraphrase; our copy does not provide a page number for them. (LLM, conf=0.88)

  cites Dutilh Novaes 2018 source

In the paper

“While I have sympathies with this proposal, several researchers have noted that the concept of 'group selection' is problematic (West et al. 2007;Pinker 2012).”

What the sources say

• Supported

  In “There is no formal theory of group selection,” the authors call the lack of a proper definition a “huge problem” and argue that the concept itself fails to yield a formal theory. The Conclusions also describe the approach as fostering confusion. These passages directly support the broad claim that the concept is problematic. (LLM, conf=0.95)

  cites West et al. 2007 source
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Pinker 2012

In the paper

“A significant amount of our beliefs are thus likely to be social ones (Tomasello 2014: 190f).”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  The “Implications for Cognition and Morality” section (page unavailable in our copy) describes human thinking as shaped by social perspectives, shared intentionality, and group norms. That supports the idea that some beliefs are social, but the paper does not establish that a significant amount of our beliefs are social ones. (LLM, conf=0.78)

  cites Tomasello 2014 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“Studies suggest that people have a strong readiness to favorably respond to babies' distinctive facial features.”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The ‘Impressions Created by Variations in Babyfaceness’ section says facial cues elicit favorable responses to babies and describes a strong prepared response to infantile facial cues. This supports the citing sentence’s hedged claim. (LLM, conf=0.93)

  cites Zebrowitz and Montepare 2008 source

In the paper

“as noted, we are ultra-social and ultra-cooperative, and our beliefs about people's social standing, knowledge, intentions, abilities, etc. are critical for our flourishing (Sterelny 2007: 720;Tomasello 2014: 190f;Henrich 2016).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sterelny 2007: 720 source
• Supported

  In “Implications for Cognition and Morality” (page unavailable), Tomasello says people’s well-being depends on their collaborative partners and that choosing partners wisely matters. The paper also discusses judging others’ intentions, skills, trustworthiness, and reputation, supporting the citing sentence’s broad paraphrase. (LLM, conf=0.88)

  cites Tomasello 2014: 190f source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Henrich 2016 source

In the paper

“In sustaining SFPs of these conceptions, which might have included various stereotypes or ethnocentric, prejudicial attitudes that we today consider offensive negative trait ascriptions (e.g., gender or racist stereotypes) (Whitaker et al. 2018), confirmation bias would have been adaptive in the past.”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The citation is attached to the examples of prejudicial attitudes, not to the citing authors’ conclusion about confirmation bias. The Introduction (page unavailable) describes prejudice as negative prejudgment and explicitly includes sexism and ethnic and racial prejudice; it also describes socially transmitted prejudicial beliefs that can sustain groups. (LLM, conf=0.88)

  cites Whitaker et al. 2018 source

In the paper

“given what we know about the cognitive effect of the bias, the more affected you are by the bias, the stronger your belief in your trait ascriptions to A (Rabin and Schrag 1999)”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  Section 3, “Confirmatory Bias and Belief Formation” (page unavailable), says the bias leads agents to be overconfident in a favored hypothesis. The Introduction (page unavailable) adds that sufficiently strong bias can drive an agent toward believing more strongly in a false hypothesis. These findings support the proposed tendency, but not the unqualified claim that greater bias always produces stronger belief in a trait ascription. (LLM, conf=0.84)

  cites Rabin and Schrag 1999 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“In fact, in psychology, attitude strength, especially, in politically relevant domains of thinking has long been and still is widely accepted to increase the kind of selective exposure constitutive of confirmation bias (Knobloch-Westerwick et al. 2015: 173).”

What the sources say

• ?Could not verify

  The available passage is a bibliographic entry, not a discussion of attitude strength or selective exposure. Searches for the claimed relationship and for preferences for attitude-consistent political information returned no substantive passage, so our copy does not establish whether the paper supports the claim. (LLM, conf=0.72)

  cites Knobloch-Westerwick et al. 2015: 173 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“The account can also explain why confirmation bias is particularly strong in groups in which shared ideologies are at stake (Taber and Lodge 2006;Gerken 2019).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Taber and Lodge 2006 source
• Partly supported

  The accepted manuscript (pp. 9–10) describes motivated cognition as favoring antecedent views and says identity-protective cognition may explain backfire effects in groups whose social identities are implicated. It does not establish that confirmation bias is generally *particularly strong* in such groups; on p. 19, it cautions against overestimating backfire effects. (LLM, conf=0.82)

  cites Gerken 2019 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“I noted that the concept of 'group selection' is problematic when it comes to traits threatening an individual's fitness (West et al. 2007;Pinker 2012)”

What the sources say

• Supported

  In “There is no formal theory of group selection” (page unavailable), the paper says that describing behaviours that reduce an individual’s direct fitness using within- and between-group effects is informal and can cause confusion. This supports the claim that group selection is problematic in this context. (LLM, conf=0.88)

  cites West et al. 2007 source
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Pinker 2012

In the paper

“It is also because subjects who are highly confident about their political beliefs are more likely to be able to convince other people of them too (Kappes et al. 2020).”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  The Abstract says people are generally more influenced by opinions expressed with high confidence. But the paper does not establish this specifically for political beliefs, and its results section finds that participants used another person's confidence when the opinion confirmed their own judgment, not when it contradicted it. Page numbers are not available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.86)

  cites Kappes et al. 2020 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“Relatedly, neuroscientific data show that a positive view of one's own traits tends to correlate with a reduced activation of the right inferior prefrontal gyrus, which is the area of the brain processing selfrelated content, when the subject receives negative self-related information(Sharot et al. 2011).”

What the sources say

• Partly supported

  The Results section ('Trait optimism, biased updating, and BOLD signal'; page unavailable) reports that participants high in trait optimism showed weaker right-IFG tracking of undesirable estimation errors. The study concerns information about the likelihood of adverse events in one's future, not negative information about one's traits. It also does not establish that the right IFG is an area for processing self-related content generally. (LLM, conf=0.88)

  cites Sharot et al. 2011 sourceExperimental — accuracy not yet measured

In the paper

“That is, optimists about themselves display a diminished sensitivity for negative information that is in tension with self-related trait optimism (ibid).”

What the sources say

• Supported

  The Discussion (page not provided) says participants high in trait optimism were worse at tracking undesirable information about their personal future and relatively dismissed information that contradicted their optimism. The Results section likewise reports weaker right-IFG tracking of undesirable estimation errors in high versus low optimists. (LLM, conf=0.91)

  cites Sharot et al. 2011 source

In the paper

“Moreover, they typically involve integrating diverse data from different disciplines (e.g., psychology, biology, anthropology etc.), and thereby contribute to the development of a more complete understanding of the traits at play and human cognition, in general (Tooby and Cosmides 2015).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Tooby and Cosmides 2015 source

In the paper

“This suggests that subjects are less critical of their own arguments than of other people's, indicating that confirmation bias is real and perhaps often operative when we are considering our own claims and arguments.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Trouche et al. (2016) source

In the paper

“Crucially, ancestral 'hunter-gather' groups are perhaps unlikely to have displayed a diversity of viewpoints.”

In the paper

“However, the proposal seems at odds with the finding that the bias inclines subjects to ignore or misconstrue their opponents' objections.”

In the paper

“If human reasoning emerged for argumentative purposes, the existence of the bias remains puzzling.”

In the paper

“About half of the participants didn't notice that by the experimenter's intervention, in some trials, they were in fact presented with their own arguments again; the arguments appeared to these participants as if they were someone else's.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Trouche et al. (2016) source

In the paper

“Even today groups often display such homogeneity, as calls for diversity in academia, companies etc. indicate.”

In the paper

“The point equally applies to the proposal that confirmation bias was selected for its group-level benefits.”

In the paper

“For instance, an anticipated objection is likely to be answered more convincingly than an immediate response from one's audience.”

In the paper

“These points provide reasons to doubt that ancestral groups provided the kind of conditions in which confirmation bias could have produced the benefits that the group-cognition account highlights rather than maladaptive effects tied to group polarization.”

In the paper

“I call this process reality matching and contend that it frequently occurs when the beliefs at issue are about people and social structures (i.e., relationships between individuals, groups, and socio-political institutions).”

In the paper

“One common explanation of this asymmetry is that SFPs typically depend on whether the targets of the trait ascriptions involved accept the expectations imposed on them via the ascriptions (Snyder and Klein 2007).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Snyder and Klein 2007 source

In the paper

“I discuss three recent proposals of the adaptationist kind, mention reservations about them, and develop a novel account of the evolution of confirmation bias that challenges a key assumption underlying current research on the bias, namely that the bias thwarts reliable belief formation and truth tracking.”

In the paper

“Due to its role in helping us make social reality match our beliefs, confirmation bias is adaptive, or so I will argue.”

In the paper

“Indeed, there is evidence that even today, positive SFPs in individual, dyadic interactions are more likely and pronounced than negative ones.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Willard et al. (2008) source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Willard and Madon 2016 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Madon et al. 1997 source

In the paper

“All three proposals of the adaptive role of confirmation bias considered so far thus raise questions.”

In the paper

“Relatedly, the more convinced you are about your trait ascription to A, the clearer your signaling of the corresponding expectations to A in your behavior (Tormala 2016)”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Tormala 2016 source

In the paper

“This makes SFPs of these beliefs more likely than if the ascriber merely verbally attributed the traits without committing to the truth of the ascriptions, or believed in them but readily revised the beliefs.”

In the paper

“Crucially, if A too is confident that he has T, he will be more likely to conform to the corresponding expectations than if he doesn't believe the ascription, say, because he notices that you only say but don't believe that he has T.”

In the paper

“Importantly, SFPs can be pernicious when the beliefs at the center of them capture negative social conceptions, for instance, stereotypes, anxious expectations, fear, or hostility (Darley and Gross 1983;Downey et al. 1998;Madon et al. 2018).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Darley and Gross 1983 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Downey et al. 1998 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Madon et al. 2018 source

In the paper

“This is well established when it comes to one's beliefs about oneself (about 70% of the general population has a positive self-conception; Talaifar and Swann 2017: 4) and one's family members (Wenger and Fowers 2008).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Talaifar and Swann 2017 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Wenger and Fowers 2008 source

In the paper

“If we combine these considerations with the assumption that in ancestral groups of heavily interdependent subjects, positive social beliefs about in-group members (in-group favoritism) are likely to have been more prevalent than negative ones, then there is reason to hold that the SFPs of the social conceptions in the groups at issue were more often than not adaptive.”

In the paper

“According to the account, confirmation bias evolved because it helps us influence people and social structures so that they come to match our beliefs about them.”

In the paper

“However, reality doesn't always remain unchanged when we form beliefs about it.”

In the paper

“SFPs of initially false positive trait ascriptions emerge in many other situations too.They also occurred, for instance, when adults ascribed to children traits such as being tidy (Miller et al. 1975), charitable (Jensen and Moore 1977), or cooperative (Grusec et al. 1978).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Miller et al. 1975 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Jensen and Moore 1977 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Grusec et al. 1978 source

In the paper

“Due to that effect, the bias arguably makes an intention alignment with others (especially with one's opponents) harder, not easier.”

In the paper

“Additionally, the better you are at conveying to A your conviction that he has T, the more confident he himself will be that he has that trait (assuming he trusts you) (Sniezek and Van Swol 2001).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sniezek and Van Swol 2001 source

In the paper

“they respond more to positive than negative expectations (Madon et al. 1997: 792)”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Madon et al. 1997: 792 source

In the paper

“I suggest that confirmation bias plays an important role: it allows subjects to become and remain convinced about their social beliefs (e.g., trait ascriptions) when the available evidence doesn't yet support their truth.”

In the paper

“since subjects tend to strive to think well of themselves (Talaifar and Swann 2017)”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Talaifar and Swann 2017 source

In the paper

“I shall contend that a confirmation bias pertaining to social beliefs reinforces our confidence in these beliefs, therewith strengthening our tendency to behave in ways that cause changes in reality so that it corresponds to the beliefs, turning them (when they are initially inaccurate) into self-fulfilling prophecies (SFPs) (Merton 1948;Biggs 2009).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Merton 1948 source
• ?Not matched

  Couldn’t be matched to a paper in Crossref, so it can’t be checked.

  cites Biggs 2009

In the paper

“In these situations, confirmation bias is highly effective for us to be confident about our beliefs even when there is insufficient evidence or subjective motivation available to us to support them.”

In the paper

“Given these points, in 'ultra-cooperative' social environments in which 'tribe' members held predominantly positive social conceptions and expectations about ingroup subjects, positive SFPs should have been overall more frequent and stronger than negative ones.”

In the paper

“But they do (Nickerson 1998).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Nickerson 1998 source

In the paper

“That is, interactions between powerful and powerless individuals are conducive to reality matching of the powerful individuals' social beliefs.”

In the paper

“Since this process is in ultra-social and ultra-cooperative groups more often than not adaptive (e.g., boosting the development of a positive trait in A), in facilitating a social extension of it, confirmation bias is adaptive too.”

In the paper

“If we add to these points that SFPs of trait ascriptions were in developmental and educational contexts in ancestral tribal groups more often beneficial for the targets than not, then there is a basis for holding that confirmation bias might in fact have been selected for sustaining SFPs.”

In the paper

“For instance, powerful individuals have been found to be more likely to prompt subordinates to behaviorally confirm their social conceptions than relatively powerless subjects (Copeland 1994;Leyens et al. 1999).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Copeland 1994 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Leyens et al. 1999 source

In the paper

“According to the RM account, powerful individuals should display a stronger confirmation bias with respect to the relevant social beliefs.”

In the paper

“Secondly, in ancestral groups, many of the social conceptions (e.g., beliefs about social roles, gender norms, stereotypes etc.) that subjects unreflectively acquired during their upbringing and socialization will have been geared toward preserving the group's function and status quo and aligning individuals with them (Sterelny 2006: 148).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Sterelny 2006: 148 source

In the paper

“By helping subjects make social reality match their beliefs about it no matter whether they favor these beliefs or the latter are sufficiently evidentially supported, confirmation bias is adaptive:”

In the paper

“Notice that when we automatically reinforce any of our views no matter whether we favor them, then our preferences won't be required for and undermine the reinforcement process and the SFPs promoted by it.”

In the paper

“when the bias targets positive social beliefs and trait ascriptions, it serves both the subject and the group by producing effects that (1) assist them in their development (to become, e.g., more communicative, cooperative, or knowledgeable) and (2) make social cognition more tractable (by increasing social conformity and predictability).”

In the paper

“Since it can operate independently of a subject's preferences, a confirmation bias in each member of the group would have helped the group enlist each of its members for re-producing social identities, social structures, traits, and roles in the image of the group's conceptions even when these individuals disfavored them.”

In the paper

“To be sure, when it targets negative trait ascriptions (pernicious stereotypes, etc.), the bias can have ethically problematic SFP effects.”

In the paper

“It only claims that facilitating the alignment of social reality with social beliefs (i.e., reality matching) is one of the important adaptive features for which the bias was selected that has so far been neglected.”

In the paper

“Taken together, these considerations provide a basis for holding that confirmation bias was selected for promoting SFPs.”

In the paper

“Importantly, these beliefs, unlike beliefs about the nonsocial world, are able to and frequently do initiate SFPs contributing to the outlined evolutionary benefits.”

In the paper

“Second, it doesn't follow that because confirmation bias also affects beliefs that can't initiate SFPs that it could not have been selected for affecting beliefs that can and do initiate SFPs.”

In the paper

“As a general tendency to support any of one's beliefs rather than only favored ones, the bias thus enables a social 'ripple' effect in the process of making trait ascriptions match reality.”

In the paper

“For several studies found that SFPs of trait ascriptions occurred only when ascribers were certain of the ascriptions, not when they were less confident (Swann and Ely 1984;Pelham and Swann 1994;Swann 2012: 30).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Swann and Ely 1984 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Pelham and Swann 1994 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Swann 2012: 30 source

In the paper

“Thirdly, in helping us make social affairs match our beliefs about them even when we don't favor them, confirmation bias also provides us with significant epistemic benefits in social cognition.”

In the paper

“Assuming that confirmation bias operates on them nonetheless, the bias will frequently be adaptive in the ways just mentioned.”

In the paper

“Thus, the more affected you are by the bias, the higher the likelihood of SFPs of the ascriptions because conviction about the ascriptions plays a key facilitative role for SFPs.”

In the paper

“and the higher the normative impetus on him, as a cooperative subject, to conform so as to avoid disrupting interactions with you.”

In the paper

“But, as noted, especially in ancestral 'tribal' groups, it would perhaps still have contributed to social conformity, predictability, and sustaining the status quo, which would have been adaptive in these groups (Richerson and Boyd 2005) inter alia by facilitating social cognition.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Richerson and Boyd 2005

In the paper

“Finally, there is also evidence that confirmation bias is more pronounced with respect to social beliefs compared to non-social beliefs.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Marsh and Hanlon 2007 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Talaifar and Swann 2017 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Goodwin et al. 2000 source

In the paper

“and so the lower the likelihood that you will reveal in your behavior a lack of conviction about them that could undermine SFPs.”

In the paper

“I suggest that confirmation bias too was selected for making us effective 'nodes' in social networks by inclining us to create social reality that corresponds to these networks' conceptions even when we dislike them or they are harmful to others (e.g., out-group members).”

In the paper

“For, as Richerson and Boyd (2005: 121f) note too, in ancestral groups, selection pressure favored social conformity, predictability, and stability.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Richerson and Boyd 2005: 121f

In the paper

“The literature offers many examples of biological features or cognitive traits that were selected for fulfilling a certain function despite rarely doing so or even having maladaptive effects (Millikan 1984;Haselton and Nettle 2006).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Millikan 1984 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Haselton and Nettle 2006 source

In the paper

“This matters because if social beliefs are pervasive and SFPs of them significant for our flourishing, then a domain-general tendency to confirm any of our beliefs ensures that we don't miss opportunities to align social reality with our conceptions and to reap the related developmental and epistemic benefits.”

In the paper

“This means that such a general tendency, i.e., a confirmation bias, can fulfil the function of facilitating SFPs more frequently than motivated cognitions, namely whenever the subject has acquired a social conception (e.g., as the result of upbringing, learning, or testimony).”

In the paper

“This coheres with the view that confirmation bias might serve the 'collective' to bring subjects into accordance with its social conceptions (positive or negative).”

In the paper

“the reality-matching (RM) account, which holds that one of the adaptive features for which the bias evolved is that it helps us bring social reality into alignment with our beliefs.”

In the paper

“and that confirmation bias would arguably only lead to the group-level benefits at issue in groups with viewpoint diversity.”

In the paper

“This condition is satisfied even in groups with viewpoint homogeneity.”

In the paper

“And, as noted, the resulting group polarization itself can then be adaptive in strengthening the realitymatching process.”

In the paper

“While the socially constructive aspect of confirmation bias highlighted here may not be the main or only feature of the bias that led to its evolution, it is one that has so far been overlooked in the evolutionary theorizing on confirmation bias.”

In the paper

“The RM account offers a different perspective, suggesting that when it is directed at beliefs about social affairs, confirmation bias does often help subjects correct their mistaken conceptions to the extent that it contributes to SFPs of them.”

In the paper

“First, it has greater explanatory power than the three alternative views outlined above.”

In the paper

“in contemporary societies, overall accumulative SFP effects of negative social beliefs capturing, e.g., stereotypes might be stronger than those of positive social beliefs in individual dyadic interactions(Madon et al. 2018).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Madon et al. 2018 source

In the paper

“And the more widespread a political conviction in a population, the higher the probability that the population will adopt political structures that shape reality in line with it (Jost et al. 2003;Ordabayeva and Fernandes 2018).”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Jost et al. 2003 source
• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Ordabayeva and Fernandes 2018 source

In the paper

“One problem with this view was that the bias seems to hinder an intention alignment of individuals by weakening their perspective-taking capacity, and inclining them to ignore or distort people's objections.”

In the paper

“it is to be expected that when it comes to ideological propositions in like-minded groups, confirmation bias is more pronounced.”

In the paper

“The RM account also differs from the intention-alignment view, which holds that confirmation bias evolved for allowing us to synchronize intentions with others.”

In the paper

“Empirical data thus corroborate some of the predictions of the RM account.”

In the paper

“In short, then, while there are currently no systematic comparative studies on whether confirmation bias is more frequent or stronger with respect to social beliefs, related empirical studies do suggest that when it comes to (positive or negative) social beliefs about oneself, other people, and social states of affairs that the subject can determine (e.g., political beliefs), confirmation bias is”

In the paper

“But if the bias functions to boost primarily only one's own conviction about particular beliefs so as to facilitate SFPs then 'laziness' in critical thinking about one's own positions (Trouche et al. 2016) shouldn't be surprising.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Trouche et al. 2016 source

In the paper

“If, as the RM account proposes, confirmation bias was selected for sustaining social beliefs for the sake of reality matching then the bias should be particularly strong when it comes to beliefs about political states of affairs.”

In the paper

“SFPs can also accumulate when they occur across different interactions”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Madon et al. 2018 source

In the paper

“Brannon et al. (2007) found that stronger, more extreme political attitudes are correlated with higher ratings of interest in attitude-consistent versus attitude-discrepant political articles.”

What the sources say

• ?Not checked — no full text of the sourcecites Brannon et al. 2007 source