Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds~or theirs

[Bill]

I found this to be quite correct, w/ few exceptions.. Someone being proven totally wrong, regardless of facts, won't change their minds

Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds
New discoveries about the human mind show the limitations of reason.

By Elizabeth Kolbert

February 19, 2017

In 1975, researchers at Stanford invited a group of undergraduates to take part in a study about suicide. They were presented with pairs of suicide notes. In each pair, one note had been composed by a random individual, the other by a person who had subsequently taken his own life. The students were then asked to distinguish between the genuine notes and the fake ones.

Some students discovered that they had a genius for the task. Out of twenty-five pairs of notes, they correctly identified the real one twenty-four times. Others discovered that they were hopeless. They identified the real note in only ten instances.

As is often the case with psychological studies, the whole setup was a put-on. Though half the notes were indeed genuine—they’d been obtained from the Los Angeles County coroner’s office—the scores were fictitious. The students who’d been told they were almost always right were, on average, no more discerning than those who had been told they were mostly wrong.

In the second phase of the study, the deception was revealed. The students were told that the real point of the experiment was to gauge their responses to thinking they were right or wrong. (This, it turned out, was also a deception.) Finally, the students were asked to estimate how many suicide notes they had actually categorized correctly, and how many they thought an average student would get right. At this point, something curious happened. The students in the high-score group said that they thought they had, in fact, done quite well—significantly better than the average student—even though, as they’d just been told, they had zero grounds for believing this. Conversely, those who’d been assigned to the low-score group said that they thought they had done significantly worse than the average student—a conclusion that was equally unfounded.

“Once formed,” the researchers observed dryly, “impressions are remarkably perseverant.”

A few years later, a new set of Stanford students was recruited for a related study. The students were handed packets of information about a pair of firefighters, Frank K. and George H. Frank’s bio noted that, among other things, he had a baby daughter and he liked to scuba dive. George had a small son and played golf. The packets also included the men’s responses on what the researchers called the Risky-Conservative Choice Test. According to one version of the packet, Frank was a successful firefighter who, on the test, almost always went with the safest option. In the other version, Frank also chose the safest option, but he was a lousy firefighter who’d been put “on report” by his supervisors several times. Once again, midway through the study, the students were informed that they’d been misled, and that the information they’d received was entirely fictitious. The students were then asked to describe their own beliefs. What sort of attitude toward risk did they think a successful firefighter would have? The students who’d received the first packet thought that he would avoid it. The students in the second group thought he’d embrace it.

Even after the evidence “for their beliefs has been totally refuted, people fail to make appropriate revisions in those beliefs,” the researchers noted. In this case, the failure was “particularly impressive,” since two data points would never have been enough information to generalize from.

The Stanford studies became famous. Coming from a group of academics in the nineteen-seventies, the contention that people can’t think straight was shocking. It isn’t any longer. Thousands of subsequent experiments have confirmed (and elaborated on) this finding. As everyone who’s followed the research—or even occasionally picked up a copy of Psychology Today—knows, any graduate student with a clipboard can demonstrate that reasonable-seeming people are often totally irrational. Rarely has this insight seemed more relevant than it does right now. Still, an essential puzzle remains: How did we come to be this way?

In a new book, “The Enigma of Reason” (Harvard), the cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber take a stab at answering this question. Mercier, who works at a French research institute in Lyon, and Sperber, now based at the Central European University, in Budapest, point out that reason is an evolved trait, like bipedalism or three-color vision. It emerged on the savannas of Africa, and has to be understood in that context.

Stripped of a lot of what might be called cognitive-science-ese, Mercier and Sperber’s argument runs, more or less, as follows: Humans’ biggest advantage over other species is our ability to coöperate. Coöperation is difficult to establish and almost as difficult to sustain. For any individual, freeloading is always the best course of action. Reason developed not to enable us to solve abstract, logical problems or even to help us draw conclusions from unfamiliar data; rather, it developed to resolve the problems posed by living in collaborative groups.

“Reason is an adaptation to the hypersocial niche humans have evolved for themselves,” Mercier and Sperber write. Habits of mind that seem weird or goofy or just plain dumb from an “intellectualist” point of view prove shrewd when seen from a social “interactionist” perspective.

Consider what’s become known as “confirmation bias,” the tendency people have to embrace information that supports their beliefs and reject information that contradicts them.

Of the many forms of faulty thinking that have been identified, confirmation bias is among the best catalogued; it’s the subject of entire textbooks’ worth of experiments. One of the most famous of these was conducted, again, at Stanford. For this experiment, researchers rounded up a group of students who had opposing opinions about capital punishment. Half the students were in favor of it and thought that it deterred crime; the other half were against it and thought that it had no effect on crime.

The students were asked to respond to two studies. One provided data in support of the deterrence argument, and the other provided data that called it into question. Both studies—you guessed it—were made up, and had been designed to present what were, objectively speaking, equally compelling statistics. The students who had originally supported capital punishment rated the pro-deterrence data highly credible and the anti-deterrence data unconvincing; the students who’d originally opposed capital punishment did the reverse. At the end of the experiment, the students were asked once again about their views. Those who’d started out pro-capital punishment were now even more in favor of it; those who’d opposed it were even more hostile.

If reason is designed to generate sound judgments, then it’s hard to conceive of a more serious design flaw than confirmation bias. Imagine, Mercier and Sperber suggest, a mouse that thinks the way we do. Such a mouse, “bent on confirming its belief that there are no cats around,” would soon be dinner. To the extent that confirmation bias leads people to dismiss evidence of new or underappreciated threats—the human equivalent of the cat around the corner—it’s a trait that should have been selected against. The fact that both we and it survive, Mercier and Sperber argue, proves that it must have some adaptive function, and that function, they maintain, is related to our “hypersociability.”

Mercier and Sperber prefer the term “myside bias.” Humans, they point out, aren’t randomly credulous. Presented with someone else’s argument, we’re quite adept at spotting the weaknesses. Almost invariably, the positions we’re blind about are our own.

A recent experiment performed by Mercier and some European colleagues neatly demonstrates this asymmetry. Participants were asked to answer a series of simple reasoning problems. They were then asked to explain their responses, and were given a chance to modify them if they identified mistakes. The majority were satisfied with their original choices; fewer than fifteen per cent changed their minds in step two.

[Legion]

This is news to you?

[Bobb]

One of the most amazing things in the universe is human stupidity, even among intelligent people. You see it every day in this forum, people refusing to follow simple logic and obvious facts, because that logic and those facts don't confirm their beliefs.

[MAGA MAN]

So that's why libs can't learn.

[Bill]

One of the most amazing things in the universe is human stupidity, even among intelligent people. You see it every day in this forum, people refusing to follow simple logic and obvious facts, because that logic and those facts don't confirm their beliefs.

I have seen more times than I care to count....... It is essentially the norm..

[cawacko]

The fact that p*ssy has gotten men in more trouble over the centuries does not change our behavior. It remains undefeated.

[Part Multi 313]

Facts change my mind with a razor sharp turn. Being skeptical requires you to accept truth whether you like to or not. I prefer being skeptical and not cling to beliefs that are proven false.

[Bobb]

Facts change my mind with a razor sharp turn. Being skeptical requires you to accept truth whether you like to or not. I prefer being skeptical and not cling to beliefs that are proven false.

If that's true, you're a rare breed. But, most self-described skeptics are as brain-dead as anyone else.

[Bobb]

There was a feminist bake sale where they were charging women (and non-whites) less to protest against women being paid less "for the same work." They might throw around 73 cents on the dollar (meaning half of companies pay even less than 73 cents). Of course, that's a bullsht lie.

What would happen if I asked them which companies are paying 73 cents or less? They wouldn't be able to name one.

What would happen if I asked them how come they can't name one? They'd maybe promise that they could get back to me on it.

Yes, not a one of those feminize bimbos would even pause a second to think maybe their statistic is bullsht.

It doesn't matter whether we're talking about Feminists, or any other bullshit movement.

Why are you so stupid?

[jimmymccready]

Critical thinking is simply not an ability that most people want to develop. They are comfortable in their comfort cocoons and do not want to blossom out as rational, thinking individuals.

[Bobb]

Critical thinking is simply not an ability that most people want to develop. They are comfortable in their comfort cocoons and do not want to blossom out as rational, thinking individuals.

Yes, I think public schools, the media, and the PC police work very hard to discourage critical thinking.

[Jack]

The fact that p*ssy has gotten men in more trouble over the centuries does not change our behavior. It remains undefeated.

That pretty much sums it up.

[jimmymccready]

Yes, I think public schools, the media, and the PC police work very hard to discourage critical thinking.

Thank you, Bobb, for showing your cannot critically think. You "are comfortable in" your far right wing "comfort" cocoon "and do not want to blossom out as a rational, thinking individual."

[jimmymccready]

That pretty much sums it up.

Viva la p****! And rubber up for safety's sake.

[JPF]

I found this to be quite correct, w/ few exceptions.. Someone being proven totally wrong, regardless of facts, won't change their minds

Thank you for sharing the studies. Here are my thoughts.

First about the studies.

When the administrators of the experiment pull the switch-a-roo and tell them that the suicide notes or Frank’s bio was faked, they asked the students to make a value judgement based on what they had experienced previously. It doesn’t say so in the OP but it certainly seems like if you’re given an either/or choice (did we get this right or wrong…..does an effective firefighter take or avoid risks), choosing the previously held position seems like a coin flip. If it’s either/or…why not? So I’d be interested in knowing what choices the students had before I endorse the experiment. Put another way, if the students are asked a simple A or B choice, why not “stick to your guns” if it is just as likely to be right as it is wrong?

The second thing is this. Put into the context of politics, the studies you’re trying to relate to Politics, in my opinion, fall short. Again, just my opinion—and your post is just as valid as any on the subject. Here is why I think that.

Politics is more than just looking at someone’s positions and determining whether or not you think they are good or bad for your district, state, or country. Elizabeth Warren? I think she’s a great Senator based on the committee hearings I see. As a Presidential Candidate? I wouldn’t like her chances of beating a corpse. She doesn’t inspire me, she strikes almost no confident tone in her delivery, and she seems to put too much importance on pandering.

Additionally, in our federal system, it makes zero sense (unless you are a fan of gridlock) today to vote for a President of one party and a legislator from another party. None whatsoever. So if you were to look at facts in the race for the 2nd District in Colorado between John Doe (R) and Jane Doe (D), you may agree with John’s positions but since you support a Democrat for President, you would be smarter in my view to vote for Jane than you would John.
So the facts that you like about John do not matter. They are over-shadowed by the little consonant next to his name.

Lastly, in terms of the politics, a very divisive national figure or position will hurt your party’s chances more than their presence helps. I am perplexed that the Democrats voted for Nancy Pelosi to be the SOTH. Her effectiveness as a practitioner of the profession is well documented. So what. Every republican who runs this year for Senate, House, City Council, School Board, Dog Catcher will have a picture of heir Democratic Party opponent next to Pelosi. Whatever she gains for the Dems in the trenches, she loses for them at the ballot box. The NEA…it costs you one tenth of a penny in tax monies or something like that. It likely costs the Democrats thousands of votes every cycle because of the art it helps promote. The ridiculous acceptance of multiple genders by the Democrats? Incredibly toxic to the national party. My personal positions largely support what Pelosi would want, largely support the rationale of the promotion of art being in the national interest and I think you should be able to call yourself any gender you want as long as you use the bathroom that biology assigned to you. I’m willing to sacrifice Pelosi, the NEA and the bathroom liberation act (or whatever the heck they call it) to get more votes in MI, OH, and WI on election day 2020.

Anyway, I guess in summary, my point is that while the Stanford experiments are good as far as showing there is a distinguishable gap between what we want to believe and what the facts suggest we should believe, it may not be easily translatable a to politics.