According to the dictionary, the word bias simply means a preference or an inclination, especially one that inhibits impartial judgment. For example, you might have a favorable impression of the teaching profession because your mother and wife are both in that field.  Or, you might asked to be excused from participating as a juror given your bias against cops following a bad experience you had with a security guard at your school. Confirmation bias, moreover, is the tendency to search for, favor, interpret, and remember information in such a way as to confirm one's preexisting hypotheses or beliefs, while giving disproportionately less consideration to alternative possibilities. The perfect example? Politics. Democratic voters tend to get their information from liberal-leaning networks like CNN and MSNBC while Republicans opt for conservative channels like Fox News.  Indeed, we trust and recall information that fits in with our existing world view while discounting information...

As I've said countless times, getting someone to change is often a futile effort. It's very difficult to change people's personality, beliefs or attitudes. Not only are we naturally resistant to change, but being prodded into changing usually has the unintended effect of making people double down on the very behavior you're hoping to change. If you want to stand any chance of changing someone, however, it can only be done in two ways: (1) opening one's heart and/or (2) opening one's mind. In other words, you're more likely to get someone to change when you can appeal to their thoughts or their emotions. It's for this reason that advertising can be so effective, especially ads of a negative nature. They not only lead us to rethink our positions, but they stir powerful emotions in us -- from sadness to regret. Whether you want someone to become more respectful or less selfish, it usually starts with a heart-to-heart. Unfortunately, sometimes th...