Editing Problem solving (section)

===Confirmation bias===
{{Main|Confirmation bias}}
Confirmation bias is an unintentional tendency to collect and use data which favors preconceived notions. Such notions may be incidental rather than motivated by important personal beliefs: the desire to be right may be sufficient motivation.<ref name="Nickerson1998">{{cite journal |year=1998 |title=Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises |journal=Review of General Psychology |volume=2 |issue=2 |page=176 |doi=10.1037/1089-2680.2.2.175 |last1=Nickerson |first1=Raymond S.|s2cid=8508954 }}</ref>

Scientific and technical professionals also experience confirmation bias. One online experiment, for example, suggested that professionals within the field of psychological research are likely to view scientific studies that agree with their preconceived notions more favorably than clashing studies.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Hergovich | first1=Andreas | last2=Schott | first2=Reinhard | last3=Burger | first3=Christoph | title=Biased Evaluation of Abstracts Depending on Topic and Conclusion: Further Evidence of a Confirmation Bias Within Scientific Psychology | journal=Current Psychology | publisher=Springer Science and Business Media LLC | volume=29 | issue=3 | year= 2010 | issn=1046-1310 | doi=10.1007/s12144-010-9087-5 | pages=188–209| s2cid=145497196 }}</ref> According to Raymond Nickerson, one can see the consequences of confirmation bias in real-life situations, which range in severity from inefficient government policies to genocide. Nickerson argued that those who killed people accused of [[Witch-hunt|witchcraft]] demonstrated confirmation bias with motivation.{{cn|reason=|date=September 2023}} Researcher Michael Allen found evidence for confirmation bias with motivation in school children who worked to manipulate their science experiments to produce favorable results.<ref>{{cite journal | last=Allen | first=Michael | title=Theory-led confirmation bias and experimental persona | journal=Research in Science & Technological Education | publisher=Informa UK Limited | volume=29 | issue=1 | year=2011 | issn=0263-5143 | doi=10.1080/02635143.2010.539973|bibcode=2011RSTEd..29..107A | pages=107–127| s2cid=145706148 }}</ref>

However, confirmation bias does not necessarily require motivation. In 1960, [[Peter Cathcart Wason]] conducted an experiment in which participants first viewed three numbers and then created a hypothesis in the form of a rule that could have been used to create that triplet of numbers. When testing their hypotheses, participants tended to only create additional triplets of numbers that would confirm their hypotheses, and tended not to create triplets that would negate or disprove their hypotheses.<ref>{{cite journal|year=1960|title=On the failure to eliminate hypotheses in a conceptual task|journal=Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology|volume=12|issue=3|pages=129–140|doi=10.1080/17470216008416717|last1=Wason|first1=P. C.|s2cid=19237642}}
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