confirmation bias – Kruse Kronicle

“Anti-Science” and Social Identity

Feb 6, 2015

—

by

in Christian Life, Public Policy, Science, Sociology

Tom Jacobs has an excellent piece at Pacific Standard, Threaten My Group, and I'll Belittle Your Science. He writes: Newly published research provides at least a partial answer. It finds scientific findings that challenge the assumptions of a group you strongly identify with motivate people to derogate the research in online comments. When informal membership in…

How can we reduce polarization and confirmation bias?

Nov 12, 2014

—

by

mwkruse

in Christian Life, Politics

We live in an increasingly polarized society. How do we reverse this trend? My reflection on this topic keeps taking me back to the basic question raised in the sociology of knowledge: How do we know what we think we know? During college in the late 1970s, I read Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman’s classic…

Moderating Polarization Through Polarity Management

Nov 12, 2012

—

by

mwkruse

in Business, Christian Life, Ecclesia, Polarity Management, Politics, Sociology

We live in a polarized world. I know few people who doubt that. Through increased mobility and our digitally enhanced ability to form like-minded communities, we are segregating into echo chambers. Last Thursday, I wrote about Moderating Opinions by Confronting Confirmation Bias. (Confirmation bias is the tendency to only take note of information that confirms…

Moderating Opinions by Confronting Confirmation Bias

Nov 8, 2012

—

by

mwkruse

in Christian Life, Ecclesia, Politics, Religion

Stephen Novella has written an interesting piece about confirmation bias related to politics, Moderating Political Opinions. What he has to say applies to many other areas of life, including conversations about theology and our faith experiences. Novella begins his discussion by recounting findings from recent experiments conducted by psychologists. He summarizes their findings here: ……

Confirmation Bias as a Prompting for Spiritual Discipline

Oct 12, 2012

—

by

mwkruse

in Christian Life, Politics, Sociology

"How did he get on this committee?" she asked. Several years ago, I was sitting with a friend as we looked over the names of people assigned to upcoming Presbyterian General Assembly committees. A computer program randomly assigned Committee members (and I believe it still does). As we scanned the names of the committee members…

Tag: confirmation bias

“Anti-Science” and Social Identity

How can we reduce polarization and confirmation bias?

Moderating Polarization Through Polarity Management

Moderating Opinions by Confronting Confirmation Bias

Confirmation Bias as a Prompting for Spiritual Discipline