(Mis)Information

First off, I really like this article we had to run for the blog. I would like to see the "Department of Information" put into place, whether it works or not I do believe something should be done. Our country needs something of the sorts, and I think the author is on to a great start with his ideas. Even if it needs some work, just tweek it here and there, I really liked it. I also thought there was a lot of truth and compelling arguments to the piece. As far as all these concepts go such as the Bandwagon effect, confirmation bias, base rate fallacy, and cognitive dissonance, I believe that in most scenarios there are more than one of these concepts influencing someone at a time. For an example of this in my life the one main instance I can think of was when I was a sophomore in high school. In class one day over the intercom someone said, "code blue, code blue." That was it, nothing more. My teacher went and cut off the lights, locked the door, and demanded all of us to get on the floor under our desks. Everyone one was pretty uneasy because the whole school did this and was completely dark. All you could see through the windows of the room leading to the hallways were cops walking around with flash lights, guns drawn, and the k9 dogs. Right away rumors started. The one I held on to was that there was a shoot out across the street and the gun man ran into our school. I believed this one so strongly because I heard it so many times, hence the Bandwagon effect. However, then I started only listening or looking for information that said what I believed to be correct, which you could say was confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. Come to find out some one had used the pay phone in our school and called the police saying they were gonna blow up the school, shoot and kill as many as possible. So my belief which I would have fought for, in the end, was completely wrong. Overall, I think that when people start to believe a certain piece of information that it may begin because of one of these concepts, but in the end it involves several of the concepts.