Belief bias

Belief bias is the tendency to judge the strength of arguments based on the plausibility of their conclusion rather than how strongly they justify that conclusion.^[1] A person is more likely to accept an argument that supports a conclusion that aligns with their values, beliefs and prior knowledge, while rejecting counter arguments to the conclusion.^[2] Belief bias is an extremely common and therefore significant form of error; we can easily be blinded by our beliefs and reach the wrong conclusion. Belief bias has been found to influence various reasoning tasks, including conditional reasoning,^[3] relation reasoning^[4] and transitive reasoning.^[5]

^ Robert J. Sternberg; Jacqueline P. Leighton (2004). The Nature of Reasoning. Cambridge University Press. p. 300. ISBN 978-0-521-00928-7. Retrieved 3 September 2013.
^ Evans, Jonathan; Newstead, Stephen; Byrne, Ruth (1993). Human Reasoning: The Psychology of Deduction. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. p. 243. ISBN 9780863773136. Retrieved 26 January 2017. belief bias.
^ Evans, Jonathan St. B. T.; Handley, Simon J.; Bacon, Alison M. (2009-01-01). "Reasoning Under Time Pressure". Experimental Psychology. 56 (2): 77–83. doi:10.1027/1618-3169.56.2.77. ISSN 1618-3169. PMID 19261582.
^ Andrews, Glenda (2010-10-01). "Belief-based and analytic processing in transitive inference depends on premise integration difficulty". Memory & Cognition. 38 (7): 928–940. doi:10.3758/MC.38.7.928. hdl:10072/35167. ISSN 0090-502X. PMID 20921105.
^ Roberts, Maxwell J.; Sykes, Elizabeth D. A. (2003-01-01). "Belief bias and relational reasoning". The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A. 56 (1): 131–154. doi:10.1080/02724980244000233. ISSN 0272-4987. PMID 12587899. S2CID 44544112.

[SternbergLeighton2004-1] Robert J. Sternberg; Jacqueline P. Leighton (2004). The Nature of Reasoning. Cambridge University Press. p. 300. ISBN 978-0-521-00928-7. Retrieved 3 September 2013.

[Human_Reasoning:_The_Psychology_of_Deduction-2] Evans, Jonathan; Newstead, Stephen; Byrne, Ruth (1993). Human Reasoning: The Psychology of Deduction. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers. p. 243. ISBN 9780863773136. Retrieved 26 January 2017. belief bias.

[3] Evans, Jonathan St. B. T.; Handley, Simon J.; Bacon, Alison M. (2009-01-01). "Reasoning Under Time Pressure". Experimental Psychology. 56 (2): 77–83. doi:10.1027/1618-3169.56.2.77. ISSN 1618-3169. PMID 19261582.

[4] Andrews, Glenda (2010-10-01). "Belief-based and analytic processing in transitive inference depends on premise integration difficulty". Memory & Cognition. 38 (7): 928–940. doi:10.3758/MC.38.7.928. hdl:10072/35167. ISSN 0090-502X. PMID 20921105.

[5] Roberts, Maxwell J.; Sykes, Elizabeth D. A. (2003-01-01). "Belief bias and relational reasoning". The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A. 56 (1): 131–154. doi:10.1080/02724980244000233. ISSN 0272-4987. PMID 12587899. S2CID 44544112.

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