Selective Perception

Selective perception is a cognitive bias that causes people to perceive what they want to from media messages. Advertisers and politicians count on this bias and frequently use ambiguous messages that consumers can interpret differently depending on their own experiences and leanings. An example of this could be seen listening to political speeches while a politician talks about increasing the minimum wage. Low-wage employees are going to be in favor of this, while business owners and others are going to be against it. Both groups have their own totally valid reasons for their feelings and by experiencing selective perception both groups are going to get different messages and interpretations from the same speech.