Confirmation bias and the Yorkshire Ripper is discussed in the first ever episode of Case By Concept. We will be looking into research surrounding confirmation bias and how the investigation into the Yorkshire Ripper was rife with it.

Definition: https://www.simplypsychology.org/confirmation-bias.html

Antivaxxers use certain information to further their pre-existing beliefs: Corine S. Meppelink, Edith G. Smit, Marieke L. Fransen & Nicola Diviani (2019) “I was Right about Vaccination”: Confirmation Bias and Health Literacy in Online Health Information Seeking, Journal of Health Communication, 24:2, 129-140, DOI: 10.1080/10810730.2019.1583701

Over 300 papers found to misrepresent findings of experiments due to confirmation bias: Simon, Luxton-Reilly, A. and Adelakun-Adeyemo, O. (2021) ‘Confirmation Bias and Other Flaws in Citing Pass Rate Studies’, in Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1. New York, NY, USA: ACM, pp. 575–581. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1145/3430665.3456357.

Confirmation bias on testing hypotheses: Mynatt, C. R., Doherty, M. E., & Tweney, R. D. (1977). Confirmation bias in a simulated research environment: An experimental study of scientific inference. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 29(1), 85–95. https://doi.org/10.1080/00335557743000053

Recount of the Yorkshire Ripper case:

https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/tvfilm/the-yorkshire-ripper-timeline-murders-b1111127.html

Wearside John:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wearside_Jack#:~:text=Wearside Jack is the nickname,letters in 1978 and 1979.

Peter Sutcliffe’s victims list:

https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/peter-sutcliffe-victims-list-how-many-women-yorkshire-ripper-guild-2639438?srsltid=AfmBOop2z8CgCTyR6E0b09Oca1f9ZaafeSpNmM9eocb1kk6FMNKjJ9Bf

https://www.leeds-live.co.uk/news/leeds-news/peter-sutcliffes-victims-who-were-27829709

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12763617/Police-PC-account-caught-Peter-Sutcliffe-Yorkshire-Ripper-squad.html

Picture:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-54874713.amp