Find common ground and slow down to beat confirmation bias

Deborah Mattinson and Ben Shimshon

This article describes the way voters were processing information in the run-up to the UK General Election in 2015 and explores how to tackle the specific problem of confirmation bias.

Find common ground and slow down to beat confirmation bias

Deborah Mattinson and Ben ShimshonBritain Thinks

One of the most telling insights from the 2015 general election swing voter panel that BritainThinks ran in collaboration with The Guardianwas the efficiency and ruthlessness with which the participants filtered the mass of messages slung their way by parties, media and commentators. Tasked with using their smartphones to show us their experiences of the election campaign, it became clear that voters were selecting like never before. Many swing voters were already leaning one way or another and simply spent the...

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