felt about their emotional reactions
and appraisals at the time when
they found out about the verdict.
After two months, and then a year,
participants recalled their initial
emotional response and described
their current appraisals of the verdict. After a period of two months
the more the participants appraisals of Simpson’s guilt or innocence
had changed the less stable their
memories for happiness or anger at
the verdict became. After one year
systematic changes in memories
for happiness, anger and surprise
were found to be shifting towards
the participants current appraisals of the event. For example, if
at the time of the verdict a person held the belief that Simpson
was innocent he may have reacted
with happiness at this result. But,
one year later if this person shifted
their appraisal of the situation to
thinking Simpson was guilty then
the recall of his emotional reaction to the verdict will change - he
would report he was not happy but
disappointed with the verdict at
the time, even though this was not
true.
Confirmation bias is a result
of unintentional thought strategies rather than deliberate mental
actions with the aim of deception.
There are cognitive and motivational explanations of why this
occurs. Cognitive explanations are
based upon the limitations that
people experience when carrying
out complex tasks. People employ
heuristics, a problem solving and
learning technique used to speed
up the process of finding a solution
by using mental shortcuts to cut
down the cognitive effort required
to make a decision. The solution
may not be the optimal one, but
it will be satisfactory. An educated
guess would be an example of heuristics - not all information is processed but the answer is usually
thought to be satisfactory.
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