(Attentional) Confirmation Bias

Cognitive failure resulting in thinking about positive rather than negative information pertinent to one’s current beliefs, and involves people’s tendency to seek, attend to, or to remember information which is consistent with and therefore can support, but not counter a belief or preconception.

People are more likely to accept supporting evidence at face value while subjecting evidence contrary to a particular (preferred) conclusion to more critical evaluation. This can lead to the unpleasant result that the more deeply an actor holds given beliefs, after confronting evidence which disagrees with those beliefs, the stronger (polarized) they are liable to become in their initial beliefs – counter-evidence may therefore be easily resisted (congruence).

See Carroll for an extended discussion of confirmation bias.

(see also: Belief perserverance, myside bias, Subjective Validation, belief bias, cognitive bias, Selective exposure, Forer (Barnum) effect, cognitive illusion)