One of my favorite books on confirmation bias is 2007’s Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me). In it, authors Tavris and Aronson cite a study from the early 2000s where participants were hooked up to MRIs and presented with data that either emboldened or negated their pre-held views on George W. Bush and John Kerry. Faced with facts they didn’t like, the reasoning areas of participants’ brains went dark, as if the prefrontal cortex stuck its fingers in its ears, shouted lalala, and left the room. By contrast, when shown corroborative information, their minds’ emotional provinces lit up brighter
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