I read something recently that I'd heard before, but was still struck by the
truth of it.
We tend to see things we want to see and ignore what we've already chosen to disbelieve. This is called "Confirmation Bias." It's the tendency for people to prefer information that confirms their pre-conceptions or beliefs, whether or not they are true. People then reinforce their existing attitudes by selectively collecting new evidence, by interpreting evidence in a biased way, or by selectively recalling information from memory.
This psychological flaw has been shown to explain "belief perseverance" (when beliefs remain after the evidence for them is taken away) and "illusory correlation" (in which people falsely perceive an association between two unrelated events).
Confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and illusory correlation are all rampant in criminal prosecutions. As I've stated before, most people in prison are actually guilty of the crimes they pled guilty to (over 90% accept a plea deal). But pleading guilty to one crime does not automatically mean the person is guilty of all the crimes they were charged with. That's nearly impossible to overcome though. If you're willing to plead guilty to one charge, this initiates confirmation bias in the prosecutor (and others) to believe you are guilty of all charges.
While accepting a plea often means reduced charges, or an agreement to drop additional charges, in the State of Michigan, the courts still sentence you as if you had been found guilty of all charges!
Political campaigns infamously exploit these psychological tendencies by creating belief perseverance that a candidate holds a certain belief or position even when the evidence shows otherwise or illusory correlation by leading you to falsely associate something their opponent said as defining their belief or position on an issue.
We all tend to believe what we want to believe, but perhaps if we're aware that we do this, we'll open our eyes to the truth of what's real and what isn't.
