The confirmation bias is a well-known form of motivated reasoning that serves to protect an individual from cognitive …. Because there is often systematic thought involved in generating the confirmation bias, deliberation tends to promote this … behavioral bias. Nevertheless, the importance of negative emotion in triggering the need for this bias is underappreciated. This …

, we show that regret aversion (unobservable bias) significantly reduces extremeness aversion (observable bias) and … mediates the influence of cognitive regulatory focus (unobservable bias). …