Study:Strongly held incorrect beliefs often cannot be changed by disputing facts

[MountainsWinAgain]

-If information doesn't square with someone’s prior beliefs, he discards the beliefs if they’re weak and discards the information if the beliefs are strong.

-Strongly held beliefs continued to influence judgement, despite correction attempts—even with a supposedly conscious awareness of what was happening.

-When there’s no immediate threat to our understanding of the world, we change our beliefs. It’s when that change contradicts something we’ve long held as important that problems occur.

Final thought: People believe all sorts of illogical stuff,by doing this they have benefits on psychological level,it makes them feel good,find comfort in difficult times,put some meaning in their lives (It never fascinates me enough that meaning is keeping us from all killing ourselves). Fine if your sky daddy is keeping you from killing yourself and giving you comfort well let it be then,but do not impose your emotional states on the rest of us.


Read More: Why Do People Persist in their false believes

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

The article mentioned Dartmouth, but I rather suspect that the study was conducted by the University Of The Bleedin' Fucking Obvious.

If strongly held incorrect beliefs could be change by presentation of facts to the contrary, there would be no creationists, UFO nuts, pyramidologists, etc etc.

Boru

[Lemonvariable72]

If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people

Hugh Laurie playing Gregory House.

[Aractus]

Your link doesn't seem to be loading for me at the moment - but in any case, this isn't news and nor is it relevant to the religious any more than to others - in fact it's more relevant to other aspects of human life - political, economic, etc, than it is to religion. I once talked to an ex-AAPT salesman who had convinced himself that AAPT was the "second largest telecommunications company in Australia". I said "pfft, that would be Optus" (at the time AAPT was facing bankruptcy as well that's how long ago this was), no matter what I said I couldn't convince the fuckhead he was wrong/full of shit.

[Cato]

... - in fact it's more relevant to other aspects of human life - political, economic, etc, than it is to religion.

I would like to understand your reasoning for this statement. Is it simply because of your belief? Religion's historical persistence and place in society don't make its claims any less untrue than the other beliefs tested?

[Sinbad]

If strongly held incorrect beliefs could be change by presentation of facts to the contrary, there would be no creationists, UFO nuts, pyramidologists, etc etc.

Boru

probably a few less wars too

[Aractus]

I would like to understand your reasoning for this statement. Is it simply because of your belief? Religion's historical persistence and place in society don't make its claims any less untrue than the other beliefs tested?

The phenomenon is good and bad. I'll give you an example - for most people if they look at say 12 different choice of margarine in the supermarket they will choose one and once they've done that they'll instinctively believe their choice to be "right" ie they will find reasons to defend their choice. Same thing with choice of meat or choice of eggs, oils, etc.

Okay - now I've untrained myself to believe I'm always right. I did this a long time ago. I did it because the thought of such autonomy was frightening. I don't have OCD or anything of the sort, but those decisions are now much harder for me than for most people. I've stood in isles before for 5 minutes at a time staring at my choice trying to make up my mind, because it's not "obvious" to me that my first choice is the "right choice" as is instinctively obvious to most people (even though they could have made a different choice and believed it to be right).

So it has its benefits in making decisions easier. But it also has the effect of barricading your decisions behind a wall of "I'm right because I made the decision" and once that has happened you'll look only for evidence that supports your position whilst denying anything that challenges it.

We make about 5,000 decisions a day. We can't spend 5 minutes deciding on each one, or they wouldn't get made. That's why we build things like habits to make those decisions more streamlined.

[Aractus]

Of course, I should mention that the difficulty in choosing which item to purchase is only when I'm purchasing unfamiliar things of course. But if you haven't experienced this before then you, like most people, cannot claim not to believe you're "always right".

Now as I've mentioned in my other threads, supermarkets and fast food chains exploit this to make gear you towards the choices they want you to make. An excellent example is meal-deals in fast food chains. They're deliberately geared towards making the up-sale and making you believe that it's the best value. Now my favourite take away, which is the Yarralumla Turkish Halal Pide House doesn't do this, they're old-school. Real old-school - but their system is still just as efficient, you order and get your roll (kebab) quickly and efficiently. They don't need the "meal deal" because of the sheer volume of customers. And they can also afford to be cheaper than other places - again because come lunch time there'll be a line going out the door of people there to buy their rolls. So the real choice is in how you want it made - which meat, which salads, which sauce.

But, then if you are the kind of person who instinctively orders off the meal-deal - as most people do - then you are the person who assumes you're "always right". I've been in takeaways where I've been asked the same fucking question multiple times, it's really really insulting and the reason that most takeaways I eat at are not franchise ones that are 90% about their meal deals. I was in a local Canberran chain not long ago ordered a southern fry burger that's all. I was asked 3 or 4 times if I wanted chips and gravy - why can't they take no the first time? I don't give a fucking shit if it's the "meal deal" I said what I wanted, I said no - I shouldn't have to say no again two or three more times to the same question (needless to say I won't be back in a hurry because it's just not right to be so insistent that your customer should choose an option they said no to, and also because while the chicken meat is nice I loathe the bread they use).

And if I wanted chips it wouldn't be chips and fucking gravy - that's ridiculous. I'd have chips and vinegar (the vinegar's free the gravy isn't, plus it's the healthier option).

[BoS]

Consensus on your statement. The main issue is that these illogical followers do not have the willpower to see the truth and to embrace reality,

[Aractus]

It has nothing to do with willpower it's to do with instinct. Challenging the 5,000 daily decisions you make is grossly inefficient. Which is why you don't challenge most of those decisions. What we're talking about - pre-held beliefs - are what you base your future decisions on, thus why it's difficult to change them, because you rely upon them to make the "correct" decisions; thus you believe they are correct.