Examples of Confimation Bias About the Animal World

Many people believe that ostriches bury their heads in the sand in the belief that if they can’t see a predator, it cannot see them and that lemmings often commit mass suicide to avoid overpopulation. These examples show confirmation bias, anchoring, and the halo effect. Neither “fact” is true. According to National Geographic, Ostriches do not bury their heads in the sand. If a predator threatens its nest, an ostrich will flop to the ground and remain still, laying its head against the sand to try to blend in with it. With only its body visible, from a distance, it looks like the ostrich has buried its head in the sand.

Paul W. Sherman, Ph.D., Professor of Animal Behavior at Cornell University reported that about every four years, lemming populations in the wild decline greatly and numbers then increase to levels similar to those before the declines. Scientists believe that severe winter weather, diseases, and behavioral changes due to stress may help trigger these extreme die-offs, but some people believe that large groups of lemmings throw themselves from cliffs. However, lemmings do not deliberately kill themselves.

According to several sources including an article in the Alaska Fish and Wildlife News by Riley Woodford, Daven Hiskey on todayifoundout.com, and snopes.com, a 1958 documentary by Disney, appears to have popularized the myth about lemmings. In the wildlife documentary White Wilderness, a few dozen lemmings were imported to Alberta, Canada so that they could be filmed in their “natural” habitat. The lemmings supposedly committing mass suicide by leaping into the ocean were actually thrown off a cliff by the Disney filmmakers. The film was staged using careful editing and tight camera angles. The filmmakers used close up shots to make it seem like there were thousands of lemmings migrating by filming them running on a snow covered turntable. They also filmed them crossing a little stream. Once the filmmakers had all the shots they needed, they then used the turntable to launch the lemmings over a cliff into a river and filmed this in the same way, making it seem like a mass lemming suicide was taking place. The next scene was of the dead lemmings floating in the water.

Lemmings actually prefer to be on their own, only getting together to mate when conditions are ideal such as when food is plentiful. When the lemmings are in the stage where they are overpopulated, they tend to go into a phase where they like to spread out and disperse to new areas where food is abundant and there is less competition.