Why we don’t stop believing (whatever the evidence)
“Climate change is caused by humans.” “Taxing the rich hurts the economy.” “Vaccinations cause autism.” “Heterosexuals are better parents than same-sex couples.” You might agree with some of those statements. You might have shared articles arguing for or against them on social media. You may even have debated them with friends or co-workers.
But have you ever questioned why you believe what you believe about them, and whether you’re objectively, factually correct?
We humans fancy ourselves logical thinkers, who consider the facts and come to a rational, scientifically sound conclusion about the world around us. But how we process information is actually shaped in large part by our emotions and fears, desires and biases.
“We try to think things through, but (our conclusions) are moulded by the kind of things we feel,” said Pete Ditto, professor of social psychology at the University of California, Irvine.
“A lot of people just get their information through their friends on Facebook,” said Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychology professor at Bristol University in the U.K. “(It causes) these self-amplifying echo chambers where people only read things that they already believe and never step outside that.”
Whether it’s on social media or in the news, people tend to take information at face value if it supports their world view, but scrutinize and fact-check if it contradicts their existing beliefs, said Ditto.
People deploy their skepticism unevenly, he said. “People have ideological beliefs that they want to be true.”
You can, for instance, determine a person’s beliefs on the existence of climate change by asking them a few questions about economics, Lewandowsky said.
“The more extreme people are in their (support) of the free market, the more likely they are to reject the fact that the climate is changing and that people are causing it,” he added.
That’s because the prospect of imposing eco-friendly regulations on businesses is so distasteful to free-marketers that they’ll resist the idea that there’s a problem that needs fixing, Lewandowsky said.
Once we have picked a stance, there’s a whole toolbox of cognitive methods we use to dismiss information that contradicts us, said Justin Friesen, assistant professor of psychology at the University of Winnipeg. We might disparage the source of the information, question the motives of the person sharing it, or disagree with the interpretation.
It’s not that people dislike definitive statements of fact. We love to use hard evidence to bolster our arguments — but only when it reinforces what we already believed, he explained.
In 2013, Friesen worked on an experiment by researchers at the University of Waterloo and Duke University, using one group of participants who believed samesex couples should be allowed to raise children and another group that believed children need a mother and a father.
Researchers showed the participants opposing sets of “facts,” dummied up for the purpose of the experiment, then asked them why they believed what they did about same-sex parenting.
When shown “facts” that supported them, participants in both groups told the researchers their feelings about same-sex parenting were based on science.
But when shown facts that opposed their views, participants said their beliefs on parenting weren’t based on science at all, but on abstract principles, like morality or human rights, said Friesen.
“We found that people strategically shift their reasons for their beliefs based on what serves their purposes in the moment,” Friesen said.
Using your principles as the basis of an argument is safe, Friesen said. Your opponent may have facts that contradict you, but they can’t disprove your belief that you are morally right.
Simply knowing their beliefs could hypothetically be disproved by empirical data can change people’s level of dedication to those beliefs, Friesen added.
In another study, Friesen and fellow researchers asked American participants to rate Barack Obama’s performance as president.
Some were told a leader’s performance could be objectively measured, while others were told it could not.
“When they thought that a president’s performance can’t be tested, so it’s not subject to facts, they criticized or praised him more strongly,” said Friesen.
“In other words, if you think that your belief isn’t going to be fact-checked, then you can express it more strongly.”
That boldness of belief can also result from knowing others agree with you.
“There’s a lot of evidence that when people think that their opinion is widely shared, they hold that opinion much more strongly,” said Lewandowsky.
The trouble is that, in the internet age, it’s easier than ever to find people who share even your most outlandish beliefs. People’s unwillingness to consider new and challenging information is a problem because it prevents us from negotiating or reaching a compromise, Ditto said.
But widespread acceptance of some facts can evolve over time.
Only a few decades ago, people mocked and denounced the evidence that showed cigarettes cause cancer, that drunk driving is dangerous and that seatbelts save lives. Today those ideas are generally treated as common knowledge.