In our Science 200 class, we studied the complexity of decision making and biases in the human brain. One concept that struck me was confirmation bias and motivated reasoning. First, we will focus on confirmation bias. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Confirmation bias means that an individual refuses to believe/forgets ideas or policies they do not believe in. Overall, confirmation bias shows how selfish and self-centered humans are. No matter how fair and impartial you believe you are, you still unintentionally use confirmation bias to determine your political opinions and favorite politicians. But that's okay! We all have some sort of confirmation bias, no matter who we are. That's not a bad thing, but it's definitely something we need to remember when debating the validity of a claim. Examining the 2016 presidential election is one of the best ways to look at confirmation bias in our society today. This was considered the worst election in US history. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump have divided the country in half, with Democrats and Republicans on both sides, waiting for the other side to fall. In addition to the high rates of dissatisfaction, there is one thing about this election that sets it apart from any previous election. Heavily influenced by technology, the media played a crucial role in the outcome of the elections. Accusations have come from both Republicans and Democrats, accusing the other of paying multiple media outlets around the world to spread fake news. Both parties continued with their confirmation bias, refusing to believe anything they didn't like. From the Pri News graph (https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-07-05/russian-twitter-propaganda-predicted -2016-us-election-polls), Russian trollers anticipated the poll numbers of Trump retweeting fake news on Twitter. This has caused accusations of fake news supposedly helping Donald Trump win his campaign. However, confirmation bias isn't the only thing that plays a role in our political behaviors. In class we talked about motivated reasoning. When an individual makes excuses for his or her different behavior, this is motivated reasoning. We learned about motivated reasoning in class through the shopping cart analogy. The trolley analogy asked whether we would rather kill a stranger to save 100 lives. How do we justify this behavior? Can we find a rational reason why we should kill one human being to save 100? According to a study (https://kottke.org/19/09/motivated-reasoning-and-tribal-loyalty-in-politics), an individual will change their beliefs and ethics in favor of their political ideals. For example, if your favorite politician makes a racist comment during a speech, you will continue to believe that he is a good person. You will make excuses for their inappropriate comments because you share similar political ideals. This plays directly into the effects of motivated reasoning on our political choices. We always seem to defend the behavior of the person we like best and with whom we share similar ideals. Overall, both confirmation bias and motivated reasoning play an important role in political biases. As a teenager active on most social media platforms (including Twitter), I know how influential advertising campaigns through social media can be. I remember seeing and clicking on many political ads related to the 2016 presidential election and being completely mortified by what I saw. I believe.