First Impressions Matter
A Model of Confirmatory Bias
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 23329385 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Matthew Rabin (University of California, Berkeley), John L Schrag (Emory University) |
| Year | 1999 |
| Volume | 114 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 37-82 |
| Publication date | 1999-02-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Quarterly Journal of Economics (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0033-5533 • E-ISSN: 1531-4650 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1162/003355399555945 |
| OpenAlex | W2159322587 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 131 |
| References cited | 56 |
Psychological research indicates that people have a cognitive bias that leads them to misinterpret new information as supporting previously held hypotheses. We show in a simple model that such confirmatory bias induces overconfidence: given any probabilistic assessment by an agent that one of two hypotheses is true, the appropriate beliefs would deem it less likely to be true. Indeed, the hypothesis that the agent believes in may be more likely to be wrong than right. We also show that the agent may come to believe with near certainty in a false hypothesis despite receiving an infinite amount of information.
Certainty · Cognition · Cognitive bias · Cognitive psychology · Confirmation bias · Confirmatory factor analysis · Econometrics · Epistemology · Machine learning · Overconfidence effect · Probabilistic logic · Simple (philosophy) · Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science · Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Mathematics · Misinformation and Its Impacts · Psychology · Social Psychology
Issue Advocacy and Mass Political Sophistication
Socioeconomic Status and Macroeconomic Expectations
Confirmation Bias in Social Networks
What You See is All There is
Fill in the Gap
The Wisdom of the Small Crowd
How Availability Heuristic, Confirmation Bias and Fear May Drive Societal Polarisation
Comprehending conservatism
Pandemic Shocks and Household Spending
We should totally open a restaurant
Reciprocity and resistance to comprehensive reform
Responding to Risk
Can Observers Predict Trustworthiness
Cognition and Strategy
Drought Exposure and Accuracy
Seeing what can(not) be seen
Investment Strategy and Selection Bias
How Media Ownership Matters
Belief polarization is not always irrational.
On the Theory of Strategic Voting1
The Illusion of Sustainability
Optimal Expectations
Stereotypes
The Politically Motivated Reasoning Paradigm, Part 1
The ostrich effect
The effects of entrepreneurship education
Do gender stereotypes reduce girls' or boys' human capital outcomes? Evidence from a natural experiment
Information Avoidance
Payoff-Based Belief Distortion
Analysis of biased language in peer-reviewed scientific literature on genetically modified crops
Propaganda and Conflict
Confidence-Enhanced Performance
Convergence in Misspecified Learning Models with Endogenous Actions
Self Confidence
Investigating capitalism aversion
Confirmation bias and signaling in Downsian elections
Rational Polarization
Deliberation and Social Polarization
Melting-Pot or Homophily? - An Empirical Investigation of User Interactions in Virtual Investment-Related Communities
Bounded Rationality and Learning
Confidence-Enhanced Performance, Third Version
Expectational reference points and belief formation
Confidence-Enhanced Performance
Belief Formation, Second Version
Confirmation bias and herding behavior across the housing markets
How do disasters affect intergroup perceptions? Evidence from the 2018 Sulawesi Earthquake
Emotion provides feedback about thinking styles to influence natural hazard likelihood and perceived response preparedness
Foreign pop-culture and backlash
Citation Choices in AI-Generated Fact-Checking
The importance of expertise in group decisions
Behavioural Economics and Human Decision Making
The role you play, the life you have
How credibility assessment technologies affect decision fairness in evidence-based investigations
When Do Corporate Good Deeds Become a Burden? The Role of Corporate Social Responsibility Following Negative Events
What Is the Function of Confirmation Bias
Confirmatory bias in peer review
Teaching about Marginalized Groups Using a Digital Human Library
Optimal Persuasion under Confirmation Bias
Using story retelling to enhance social work students’ openness to diversity
Refusing to budge
Selective Media Exposure and Partisan Differences about Sarah Palin's Candidacy
Accountability in Developing Democracies
On Reducing the Sexual Assault of Women
Value of parsimonious nutritional information in a framed field experiment
Cognitive biases in the assimilation of scientific information on global warming and genetically modified food
What do people want to know? Information avoidance and food policy implications
Bayesian Herders
I read the news today, oh boy
Interpersonal, Intertemporal and Spatial Variation in Risk Perceptions
Nonclassical measurement error and farmers’ response to information treatment
How do policymakers update their beliefs
Culture, gender and health care stigma
Successful Transitions to Graduate School
The Market for News
Cultural cognition of scientific consensus
Risk and ambiguity of Covid-19 inhibit intentions for post-pandemic travel via reduced valuation of tourism
Biases in Information Selection and Processing
Contrast Effects in Sequential Decisions
Inaccurate Statistical Discrimination
Are Wednesday's Children Full of Woe? Children's Differences in Personality Are Independent of Day of Birth
Learning from Performance
Stuck in Place? A Field Experiment on the Effects of Reputational Information on Student Evaluations
Evidence-based or biased? The quality of published reviews of evidence-based practices
On Prejudice
Rational Polarization
Selective-Memory Equilibrium
Non-Bayesian Persuasion
Opinions as Incentives
Hacia una modelización teórico-económica del terrorismo y de sus consecuencias y paliativos
Drought Intensity, Future Expectations, and the Resilience of Climate Beliefs
Homevalue misestimation and household leverage
Performance when misinformation increases with experience
Behavioral finance and asset prices
Cognitive dissonance, pessimism, and behavioral spillover effects
Intertemporal decision making with present biased preferences
Imperfect information processing in sequential bargaining games with present biased preferences
Confirmation bias in social networks
Unrealized arbitrage opportunities in naive equilibria with non-Bayesian belief processes
Assessing Capabilities in International Politics
Extra votes to signal loyalty
The Mind's Best Work
The weighing of evidence and the determinants of confidence
Genesis of popular but erroneous psychodiagnostic observations.
Publication prejudices
Confidence in judgment
Conjectures and Refutations
Hypothesis evaluation from a Bayesian perspective.
Individual Decision Making
Knowing with certainty
Illusory correlation as an obstacle to the use of valid psychodiagnostic signs.
Confirmation, disconfirmation, and information in hypothesis testing.
Overconfidence in case-study judgments.
Risk Aversion in the Small and in the Large
Human Inference
Stereotype‐Based Expectancies
Illusory correlation and the maintenance of stereotypic beliefs
The attitude polarization phenomenon
Beyond Selecting Information
Strength of expectancies and memory for social information
Hypothesis confirmation
A hypothesis-confirming bias in labeling effects
Persistence of inaccurate beliefs about the self
Diagnostic and confirmation strategies in trait hypothesis testing
Biased assimilation and attitude polarization
Social stereotypes and information-processing strategies
Effects of stereotypes in decision making and information-processing strategies
Overconfidence among physicians and nurses
On the liability of stereotype or hypothesis
| Unique citing works | 131 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 5,04 |
| Citation span | 2000 - 2026 (27) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | Yes |
| Citation types | Neutral: 117 |