Can Confirmation Bias Improve Group Learning?

2024/01/09 by Nathan Gabriel, Cailin O’Connor · 1 voice · 20 citations
Physics and Astronomy · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cognition #Cognitive bias #Cognitive psychology #Complex Network Analysis Techniques #Computer science #Confirmation bias #Focus (optics) #Knowledge management #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence #Psychology #Social learning #Social psychology

paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/psa.2023.176

published in Philosophy of Science 91(2), 329-350 (Cambridge University Press)

openalex publication_date 2024/01/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31

Abstract

Abstract Confirmation bias has been widely studied for its role in failures of reasoning. Individuals exhibiting confirmation bias fail to engage with information that contradicts their current beliefs, and, as a result, can fail to abandon inaccurate beliefs. But although most investigations of confirmation bias focus on individual learning, human knowledge is typically developed within a social structure. We use network models to show that moderate confirmation bias often improves group learning. However, a downside is that a stronger form of confirmation bias can hurt the knowledge-producing capacity of the community.

Citations

• On the Principle of Total Evidence
• Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises
• The Network Structure of Exploration and Exploitation
• Dynamics of Political Polarization
• In Epistemic Networks, Is Less Really More?
• Robustness and Idealizations in Agent-Based Models of Scientific Interaction
• The Communication Structure of Epistemic Communities
• Motivated Skepticism in the Evaluation of Political Beliefs
• Filter Bubbles, Echo Chambers, and Online News Consumption
• Mandevillian intelligence

Cited by

• The Mix Matters: Exploring the Interplay Between Epistemic and Zetetic Norms in Scientific Disagreement
• My-side bias, availability bias, and social interaction
• Noise and opinion dynamics: how ambiguity promotes pro-majority consensus in the presence of confirmation bias. [europepmc]
• Moderate confirmation bias enhances decision-making in groups of reinforcement-learning agents. [europepmc]
• The influence mechanism of relative deprivation on prosocial behavior of migrant children: based on the mediating effect of self-esteem and the moderating effect of social support. [europepmc]
• The case against efficiency: friction in social media. [europepmc]

Discussions

• oh yeah, this looks like exactly it. thanks! doi.org/10.1017/psa.... [bsky, 6 points, 3 comments]

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• What Is the Function of Confirmation Bias?
• Confirmation Bias: A Ubiquitous Phenomenon in Many Guises
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• Confirmation Bias as a Cognitive Resource in LLM-Supported Deliberation