The book’s vocabulary

Selective exposure

Looking for support instead of accuracy — defending views beats finding answers.

From The World That Agrees With You1 section of the book1 related post

Looking for information that supports views you already hold. A meta-analysis of decades of studies found that people prefer supporting information over challenging information, and that defending existing views influenced selection more than finding an accurate answer.

It also shapes evaluation, not just selection: biased assimilation makes the same evidence more convincing to supporters and less convincing to opponents, moving the groups further apart. You can keep looking for information while accepting only the parts that justify your favorite.

Definition from The World That Agrees With You: Understanding and Managing Sycophancy in the Age of AI, by Timothy O’Brien. © 2026 Timothy O’Brien. All rights reserved.

In the book

See also