His work led him to worry that Americans might make rash and illogical civic and political choices if stereotypes blinded them to information that didn’t conform to what they already believed. And that is exactly what is happening now. Psychologists today dub what worried Lippmann “confirmation bias.” People tend to seek out and attend to information that already confirms their beliefs. We find such information more trustworthy and are less critical of it, even when we are presented with credible, seemingly unassailable facts that suggest otherwise. Once we develop theories about how things
...more
