The Challenge of Confirmation Bias

Today’s youth are inundated with information from social media, the Internet, television, their peers, and their families. As consumers and sharers of news and information amidst this onslaught of fact and fiction, students must develop strategies to recognise bias and seek to limit the power and inevitability of their own biases. This lesson builds off of Chimamanda Adichie’s idea that the “single stories” we may rely on for information can provide us with a limited or inaccurate understanding of other people’s identities, values, and cultures, and, in turn, impact our decision-making processes and choices. The conversations about identity and “single stories” from previous lessons provide a good segue into a discussion of bias. In this lesson, students will examine the human tendency to believe what we already hold to be true even when confronted with new information and perspectives that challenge our beliefs.

This lesson begins with an activity that helps students experience confirmation bias firsthand. Then, students gain context for their experience by hearing from experts about how confirmation bias operates in all of us. Finally, they will learn about the challenges of separating fact from fiction by listening to a National Public Radio story from the United States about efforts to correct rumours and fake news; students will use information to discuss the role confirmation bias plays in how they interpret the information that they read, see, and hear today.

Before you teach this lesson, please review the following guidance to tailor this lesson to your students’ contexts and needs.

Activity 1 Experience Confirmation Bias

The following video illustrates the Wason Rule Discovery Test to introduce the idea of confirmation bias.

• Start the class by playing the video Can You Solve This? (04:43), stopping the video at 01:10. Ask students to work with a partner to see if they can guess the rule. Then have each pair share their idea and record the possible rules on the board. Play the video to the end and ask students to discuss the following questions in pairs and then as a class:

  • Why do people have trouble guessing the rule?
  • What do you think prevents the people in the video from taking a different approach to the problem even after they know what they think is the rule must be incorrect?

Activity 2 Define Confirmation Bias

• First, provide students with the definitions of bias and predisposition. Alternatively, have students create and share their own working definitions to tap into their prior knowledge before revealing the dictionary definitions and asking students to record them in their notes.
• Next, distribute the handout Defining Confirmation Bias Video Transcript and show the video Defining Confirmation Bias (02:34) twice. Instruct students to underline words and phrases that help them understand why it is so difficult for people to correct misinformation. During the first viewing, you might pause after each speaker and pose some comprehension questions to check for understanding. Then show the video a second time and ask students to complete a S-I-T response on their handouts or in their journals. They can share their responses with a partner or in a class discussion.
• Finally, in small groups or as a class, ask students to discuss the following questions:

  • What is confirmation bias and how does it work?
  • What strategies did you learn from the Can You Solve This? video and discussion that might help offset our tendencies toward confirmation bias?
  • How can confirmation bias influence the way people select and respond to news and information?
  • How does confirmation bias affect our ability to judge the accuracy of information, whether it be from a news story, something else that we see on the Internet, or something that we hear?

Activity 3 Explore the Persistence of Misinformation

Confirmation bias is often deeply entrenched in our emotional response to ideas, issues, and beliefs, making it particularly challenging to counteract. Plenty of Internet and social media sources exploit our emotional response (so-called “click bait”). Unfortunately, as we will see in this activity, this kind of viral misinformation can be particularly difficult to correct.

• The National Public Radio (NPR) report Digital Culture Critic Abandons "Fake on the Internet" Column (03:25) explores the decision by the Washington Post, a major United States newspaper, to discontinue a column dedicated to correcting viral misinformation online. Pass out the transcript of the report to students and then play the audio. Both transcript and audio are available on NPR’s website. As students listen to the story, have them underline words, phrases, or ideas in the transcript that help to explain why it is so difficult to correct misinformation. You might also instruct them to write an exclamation point in the margin in places where they are surprised and a question mark where they feel confused. If you have time, play the report twice.
• After they have listened to the report, ask small groups of students to discuss the following questions:

  • What places did you underline and mark with an exclamation point and question mark? Why did those places in the report stand out to you?
  • According to Caitlin Dewey, what are some of the reasons why people create and share what turns out to be rumour or misinformation?
  • Why do you think that people are more likely to believe misinformation or a conspiracy theory when it has been debunked or proven to be incorrect or untrue?
  • Ari Shapiro asks: “If journalists like you just give up on trying to demonstrate that these stories are false, haven't we really lost something valuable as a society?” What do you think society will lose if journalists give up trying to demonstrate that fake news stories are false? What responsibility do websites like Twitter and Facebook have to identify and block fake news stories?
  • What challenge does confirmation bias present in our efforts to see past the stereotypes and “single stories” we believe about each other?

Activity 4 Now What? Reflect on How to Apply this Information to Your Own Life

On an exit card that students submit at the end of the lesson, ask students to respond to the following questions:

• What is one way that confirmation bias can make it difficult for you to overcome a "single story" that you have about another individual, group of people, or place?
• What is one change that could you make in your own life after learning about confirmation bias that might help you overcome this “single story”?