Confirmation bias in sequential information search after preliminary decisions: An expansion of dissonance theoretical research on selective exposure to information.
Abstract
Research on selective exposure to information consistently shows that, after having made a decision, people prefer supporting over conflicting information. However, in all of these experiments participants were given an overview of all available pieces of information, selected them simultaneously, and did not process the requested information during the selection phase. In the present research the authors show that an even stronger preference for supporting information arises if information is presented and processed sequentially instead of simultaneously (Experiment 1), and they demonstrate that this stronger confirmation bias is due to sequential presentation and not to sequential processing of information (Experiment 2). The authors provide evidence that the increase in confirmation bias under sequential presentation is caused by heightened commitment due to the participants' increased focusing on their decision (Experiments 3 and 4).
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
A significant danger posed by greater levels of social capital is the fueling of confirmation bias.
“On the basis of this body of work as a whole, we reason that a significant danger posed by greater levels of SC is the fueling of confirmation bias (Jonas et al. 2001).”
From The Negative Effects of Social Capital in Organizations: A Review and Extension (2017) · cites this paper as Jonas et al. 2001
Cites
Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037//0022-3514.51.6.1173 · Cited by 91,542 · see citing works
Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/0022-3514.51.6.1173 · Cited by 91,532 · see citing works
A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
Festinger, L. (1957) · doi:10.1515/9781503620766 · Cited by 24,241 · see citing works
The case for motivated reasoning.
Kunda, Z. (1990) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/0033-2909.108.3.480 · Cited by 9,022 · see citing works
Confirmation, disconfirmation, and information in hypothesis testing
Klayman, J., & Ha, Y.-W. (1987) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.94.2.211 · Cited by 2,094 · see citing works
Effects of procedural and outcome accountability on judgment quality
Siegel-Jacobs, K., & Yates, J. F. (1996) · Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes · doi:10.1006/obhd.1996.0001 · Cited by 327 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Red Media, Blue Media: Evidence of Ideological Selectivity in Media Use
Iyengar, S., & Hahn, K. S. (2009) · Journal of Communication · doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2008.01402.x · Cited by 1,940 · see citing works
Feeling validated versus being correct: A meta-analysis of selective exposure to information
Hart, W., Albarracín, D., Eagly, A. H., Brechan, I., Lindberg, M. J., & Merrill, L. (2009) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0015701 · Cited by 1,292 · see citing works
The Effects of Negativity and Motivated Information Processing During a Political Campaign
Meffert, M. F., Chung, S., Joiner, A. J., Waks, L., & Garst, J. (2006) · Journal of Communication · doi:10.1111/j.1460-2466.2006.00003.x · Cited by 305 · see citing works
Metzger, M. J., Hartsell, E. H., & Flanagin, A. J. (2020) · Communication Research · doi:10.1177/0093650215613136 · Cited by 272 · see citing works
The moderating role of attitude strength in selective exposure to information
Brannon, L. A., Tagler, M. J., & Eagly, A. H. (2007) · Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2006.05.001 · Cited by 206 · see citing works
The Negative Effects of Social Capital in Organizations: A Review and Extension
Pillai, K. G., Hodgkinson, G. P., Kalyanaram, G., & Nair, S. R. (2017) · International Journal of Management Reviews · doi:10.1111/ijmr.12085 · Cited by 185 · see citing works
Economics of Free Under Perpetual Licensing: Implications for the Software Industry
Niculescu, M. F., & Wu, D. J. (2014) · Information Systems Research · doi:10.1287/isre.2013.0508 · Cited by 151 · see citing works
Torres, R., Gerhart, N., & Negahban, A. (2018) · ACM SIGMIS Database: the DATABASE for Advances in Information Systems · doi:10.1145/3242734.3242740 · Cited by 113 · see citing works
Understanding the role of computer-mediated counter-argument in countering confirmation bias
Huang, H.-H., Hsu, J. S.-C., & Ku, C.-Y. (2012) · Decision Support Systems · doi:10.1016/j.dss.2012.03.009 · Cited by 58 · see citing works
Bashkirova, A., & Krpan, D. (2024) · Computers in Human Behavior: Artificial Humans · doi:10.1016/j.chbah.2024.100066 · Cited by 55 · see citing works
When cognition turns vicious: Heuristics and biases in light of virtue epistemology
Samuelson, P. L., & Church, I. M. (2015) · Philosophical Psychology · doi:10.1080/09515089.2014.904197 · Cited by 52 · see citing works
Villarroel, C., Felton, M., & Garcia-Mila, M. (2016) · International Journal of Educational Research · doi:10.1016/j.ijer.2016.06.009 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
- Authors
- Jonas, E., Schulz-Hardt, S., Frey, D., & Thelen, N.
- Affiliations
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
- Venue
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
- Published
- 2001
- Volume
- 80
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 557-571
- ISSN
- 0022-3514 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1315
- OpenAlex
- W4240458456
- Cited by
- 725
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 26 · 2024: 72 · 2023: 26 · 2022: 32 · 2021: 44 · 2020: 57 · 2019: 36 · 2018: 53 · 2017: 41 · 2016: 36 · 2015: 31 · 2014: 33 · 2013: 27 · 2012: 24
- FWCI
- 30.31
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- GRO (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Social and Intergroup Psychology
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Psychology of Social Influence
- Keywords
- confirmation bias, dissonance theory, selective exposure, cognitive dissonance, information seeking
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Communication, Decision Making, Female, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Prejudice, Psychological Theory, Random Allocation
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
