This question is designed to illustrate the confirmation bias, which we introduced in the previous video. You were asked the "Heads question": Are you happy with your social life. Those who were asked the "Tails question" were asked: Are you unhappy with your social life.
We'll tally the results and present them next week, but this experiment has been done before by Ziva Kunda and her colleagues, and they showed that people who were asked whether they were happy with their social lives viewed themselves as more happy than people who were asked whether they were unhappy with their social lives.
The images that come to your mind when we asked you this question were probably based on previous instances where you were happy with your social life. The images that come to the minds of the "Tails question" people were probably based on previous instances where they were unhappy with their social life. Both of you were searching your memory for confirming evidence.
This effect is called the confirmation bias, which is one of the most common and pernicious biases that you'll encounter. Consider some of the following examples: Nurses often say that they are busier when there is a full moon, but rarely take notice of the moon during other nights of the month. People who believe that arthritis pain is influenced by the weather will notice their pain more during extreme weather events, but may pay less attention when the weather is typical. A police detective has a prime suspect in custody, and only seeks out evidence to confirm their guilt at the expense of subsequent, contradictory evidence.
We'll be discussing the confirmation bias much more in later episodes.
In order for this demonstration to work, please don't answer the 'Tails question' in the next section.