Professor Davies's Riveted: An Analysis Of Confirmation Bias

In society, many people believe that their opinions and beliefs are based on years of experience and rational analysis, when in reality, these concepts are based on a selective process of searching and gathering information. This misconception is due to the cognitive bias known as confirmation bias, a bias based on the idea of people having the tendency to interpret and accept things that confirm their beliefs while ignoring information that attempts to challenge their perceived notions. In his lectures, Professor Davies introduced, and later expanded upon in his book Riveted, this concept of confirmation bias as “people being attracted to information that supports the view of the world that they already have”. He states that people are likely to pay more attention to information that would support their beliefs and remember it better, influencing them to believe that their views have become

During one of his lectures, Professor Davies answers this question by using the belief in a very popular theory as an example: the full-moon effect theory. This theory presumes that people will become more violent and crazy when there is a full moon. By using a table containing each aspect that would represent the theory, Professor Davies explains that confirmation bias influences how people make observations during the full moon; out of all the four quadrants of the table, the most noticeable observation would be when people act aggressively during the full moon. Later, when those same people attempt to support their belief in the full-moon effect theory, they would try to recall the most significant information; said information would involve their observations regarding the times when both the full moon and the display of aggressive human behaviour are present. However, this would result in an inconsistent view of their observations since they exclude opposing evidence that would contradict the full-moon effect