Jessica M. Choplin

Ineffective in Any Form: How Confirmation Bias and Distractions Undermine Improved Home-Loan Disclosures

This Essay examines three experiments that tracked eye fixations as participants reviewed home-loan disclosure forms. The experiments revealed confirmation biases in which participants read to confirm what they were told (e.g., “Your loan is at 4%”) and then failed to look for contradictory evidence such as rate adjustments. Improved forms reduced confirmation biases, but that improvement was undermined when the...