Why Doesn't the Truth Change Our Minds?

In 1975, researchers at Stanford University asked a group of undergraduate students to participate in an experiment about suicide. Each participant was given two suicide notes. One was written at random, and the other was real, its author having subsequently committed suicide after writing the note. The students were then asked to distinguish the genuine note from the fabricated one.

It turned out that some students had an extraordinary talent for this task and, for instance, could correctly identify 24 out of 25 notes. On the other hand, it became clear that some students were not very successful at it and, for example, could correctly identify 10 out of 25. However, as with most psychological research, the reality was otherwise.

Of course, half of the notes were indeed real and had been obtained from the Los Angeles County Coroner's office. But the scores announced to each student were false. None of the students who were told they had gotten everything right had necessarily achieved a better score. Likewise, the scores of those who were told they had performed poorly were not real either.

In the second phase of the experiment, this was explained to the students. They were then told that the intention was to gauge their reaction to believing their assessments were correct or incorrect (though it later emerged that this was also a lie). Finally, the students were asked to guess what their actual score had been and what they thought the average score among the students was. At this point in the experiment, a strange thing happened. The students who had previously been told they had achieved a good score again believed that their score was above average and that they had performed very well (even though they had been informed that this was not true and that the scores were not actually known). Conversely, those who had been told they performed poorly (even though this was also not true) estimated that they had done even worse than what was announced. Consequently, they rated themselves far below the average.

The researchers concluded: "Once an impression is formed, it is very difficult to change."

A few years later, another group of Stanford students was selected for a different experiment. This experiment was related to the previous one. First, the students were divided into two separate groups and given information packets about two firefighters named Frank K. and George H. Frank's biography stated that he had a young daughter and also enjoyed scuba diving. George's stated that he had a young son and played golf. This study also included the two firefighters' answers to a "risk-taking and conservatism" test. Consequently, the picture formed of Frank was that he was a model firefighter who always gave the most conservative possible answers. George's answers to the "risk-taking and conservatism" questionnaire were similar to Frank's, but the picture presented was that George was a bad firefighter whose superiors had placed disciplinary warning letters in his file. Again, midway through the experiment, it was revealed to the students that the aforementioned information was entirely fabricated. They were then asked to give their personal opinions about George and Frank. What behavior did they think a good firefighter should exhibit in various situations? Conservatism and maintaining safety and security? Or risk-taking? The group that had received Frank K.'s information believed one should be conservative. The group that had received George H.'s information held the exact opposite view.

Even after the students were correctly shown that none of the information and beliefs they held were true, they still could not change their minds. At this point, the researchers were able to draw a conclusion, as the data obtained from the two separate experiments was quite decisive.

This series of Stanford experiments is particularly famous. Or at least in that particular period, the 1970s, the idea that people cannot think properly seemed very shocking to everyone. Now such a thing is no longer shocking. Thousands of similar experiments have been conducted, many of which have confirmed these observations. Anyone who has followed one of these studies or even picked up a copy of Psychology Today knows this. Or indeed, any psychology student holding a clipboard can demonstrate to you that people are often profoundly irrational. Perhaps this subject has never been as important as it is now. But the main question still remains: how did we humans end up this way?

In a book titled The Enigma of Reason (Harvard University Press), two cognitive scientists, Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, try to provide a fitting answer to this matter. Mercier, who now works at a research center in Lyon, France, and Sperber, who is active at the Central European University in Budapest, point out that this matter has an evolutionary root. Precisely as walking on two legs or trichromatic vision has an evolutionary root. Consequently, to understand it, one must return to the savannas of Africa.

Put simply and without considering complex scientific terminology, Mercier and Sperber's answer is this: the main advantage of humans over other living species is their ability to cooperate. But achieving this cooperation is difficult, and maintaining it is also hard. Because for any individual, free-riding on the group is always the best strategy. Reason evolved not to solve abstract, logical problems and draw conclusions from data, but to solve the problems arising from group living.

The two write in their book: "Reason evolved in response to the hyper-social niche that humans gradually created for themselves. Those behaviors that seem strange and disproportionate from the perspective of an intellectual or elite are more easily justified if seen through the lens of human relationships."

Consider, for example, the subject of "confirmation bias." It is a state in which we desire to hear information that confirms our previous opinions and aligns with our worldview, and we simply do not hear news or information that does not match our mental presuppositions, or we quickly ignore it and pay it no attention. Of all the flaws of human thinking known so far, confirmation bias has been the most researched. The volume of experiments conducted on it is so great that if gathered together, they would be more voluminous than the psychiatric reference manual. One of the most famous of these experiments was, as usual, conducted at Stanford. For this experiment, students were selected who held opposing views on the subject of the death penalty. Half of the students were in favor of this punishment and believed that execution lowers the crime rate. The other half believed that this punishment has no effect on the crime rate and opposed it.

The students were then asked to react to two studies. One of the two studies supported their view, and the other opposed it. Both studies, as you have probably guessed, were fabricated. However, they were designed in a way and contained statistics that objectively refuted or confirmed the subject under discussion. The students who favored the death penalty were more accepting of the study that supported execution and believed it provided better information and that its research value was clearly higher. The other study, however, was worthless in their view, its information was ridiculous, and its research methodology was fundamentally flawed from the start. The opposing group had the same reactions in reverse. In the end, both groups were asked once more about their stance on the death penalty. Those who were in favor of it were now even more in agreement. The opponents had become bolder in their opposition.

If we imagine that the reason logic exists is to yield correct judgments, what flaw could be greater than the problem of “confirmation bias,” which calls into question the overall health of the faculty of reason’s mechanism. Imagine a mouse that possesses reason just as we do. A mouse that believes there is no cat will soon become the cats’ dinner. If we too suffer from confirmation bias in perceiving dangers that may exist but seem negligible to us, then not only we, but the mechanism of confirmation bias itself should have been eliminated in the course of evolution by now. Mercier and Sperber, however, conclude that this mechanism must therefore have an evolutionary benefit, particularly in connection with human social life.

Mercier and Sperber also give confirmation bias another name: “my-side bias.” As is shown in their book, people are not randomly credulous. When someone explains their position to us, we are quite expert at detecting the weaknesses in their argument. Yet we are inevitably completely blind to the weaknesses of the position we ourselves hold.

A recent study conducted by Mercier and a European colleague of his clearly demonstrates this asymmetry. Participants in the experiment were asked to answer a series of simple logic questions. They were then given the opportunity to explain their position and to change their answer if they realized they had made a mistake. The result was that 85% of participants were satisfied with their answer and saw no need whatsoever to change it.

In the third phase, participants were randomly shown one of the previous questions along with their own answer and the answer of another participant who had arrived at a different conclusion. Once again, participants were given the chance to correct their answer. But the trick played was that the answer they thought was their own was actually someone else’s answer, and the answer they thought belonged to another person was, in fact, their own. Half of the participants noticed this. The other half, however, was interesting. Sixty percent of these individuals rejected their own answer.

Mercier and Sperber say that this blindness and bias is a natural response. We try to resist being duped and taken for a free ride by other people in the group. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were constantly thinking about their social standing and whether they were risking their lives every day while others were sitting in the cave resting. Having correct logic was not very beneficial, whereas winning arguments and debates was highly advantageous.

Among the many issues that were not important to our hunter-gatherer forebears are the pros and cons of the death penalty and the moral virtues of firefighters. They also did not have the opportunity to scrutinize fraudulent research, fake news, Twitter, and the like. It is therefore not strange that reason leaves us in such a bind in the modern world. As Mercier and Sperber put it: “This is one of those cases where the environment has changed so rapidly that nature has not had time to adapt.”

Steven Sloman, a professor at Brown University, and Philip Fernbach, a professor at the University of Colorado, are also two cognitive scientists. They too believe that the answer to the flaw in our reasoning faculty must be examined within a social framework. The two begin their book, titled: “The Knowledge Illusion: Why We Never Think Alone,” by examining toilets.

Humanity is familiar with the toilet. Almost everyone living in the modern world and part of the new human society knows the toilet and understands how it works. An ordinary flush toilet is a ceramic bowl with some water in it. When you press the flush button, the contents of the toilet are drawn into the sewer pipe and join the sewage system. But how does this actually happen? In other words, what is the mechanism of this affair.

In a study conducted at Yale University, students were asked to assess their knowledge of things like zippers, pedal locks, and toilets, and, for example, to rate themselves on a scale of one to ten. They were then asked to write a step-by-step explanation of how a device works. Afterwards, they were asked to rate their knowledge of these items again. It seems that this experiment caused the participating students to realize the gaps in their knowledge and consequently give themselves lower scores. It appears that toilets are more complicated than we imagine.

Sloman and Fernbach call this the "illusion of explanatory depth" and state that it is observable everywhere. People's illusion about their insight into what they know is far greater than what they actually know. What keeps us clinging to this illusion is other people. For instance, regarding the toilet, the point is that someone else has designed it in a way that is easy to use without you needing to actually understand the design process and its function. This is what humans are expert at. We are accustomed to respecting each other's expertise and trusting one another. Ever since we started hunting other creatures together—which itself is a crucial point in human evolution. We are so adept at this cooperation that we sometimes forget where our abilities end and where the abilities of others begin.

Sloman and Fernbach go on to explain: "One of the consequences of the division of cognitive labor is that there is no clear boundary between one person's ideas and knowledge and those of other members of the group."

This borderless chaos, or rather the confusion resulting from it, is vital for the progress of humankind. As various tools are built to meet different needs, humans expand the safe margins of their ignorance. If everyone who wanted to hold a metal knife first had to learn smelting, the Bronze Age would not yet be over. When it comes to new technologies, not knowing is even empowering.

Where we run into trouble (as Sloman and Fernbach put it) is in the realm of political science. Doing my business in the bathroom and flushing the toilet without understanding the process of its disposal into the sewage system is one thing; being for or against a government decree banning immigrants from such-and-such countries without knowing its function or mechanisms is quite another. Sloman and Fernbach cite a 2014 study in their book, conducted shortly after Crimea's annexation by Russia (Crimea is part of Ukraine). Participants were asked how they thought the United States should react to the issue, and also to point out Ukraine's location on a map. The more off-target their knowledge of Ukraine's location was, the greater their inclination for military intervention (the average discrepancy between where participants thought Ukraine should be and its actual location was 1,800 kilometers—roughly the distance from Kyiv to Madrid).

Research on similar topics has yielded results just as horrifying. Sloman and Fernbach write: “It appears that strong feelings about an issue do not arise from deep insight into it.” Our complicity with others deepens the catastrophe. When I, for instance, agree with a view on health insurance but lack accurate information about its details, my opinion is baseless. When I talk to so-and-so and they say, “Yeah, you’re right,” their opinion is also baseless. But now that I, so-and-so, you, and three others are baselessly agreeing with each other in this way, our belief in our baseless opinion grows even stronger. What’s more, we despise others for their opposing views with even greater force. Now, when we ignore everyone’s opinion about our stance and stifle or dismiss anyone who objects or disagrees, the result is something like the Trump administration.

Sloman and Fernbach go on to write: “This is how a consensus of uniform opinion becomes dangerous.” They then designed an experiment not unlike the toilet experiment. In 2012, they conducted a study asking questions like: Do you think having a single-payer public healthcare system is good or not? Do you think teachers’ salaries should not be based on their classroom performance? And so on. Participants had to express their answers according to their views in five ways: strongly agree, agree, neutral, disagree, and strongly disagree. They were then asked to explain the issue and describe what they thought the consequences of each decision would be. Most people ran into trouble at this stage. When asked to revise their answers in light of this revealed lack of understanding, the intensity of their agreement or disagreement diminished.

In this research, Sloman and Fernbach see a candle, however small, in the somewhat dark future of humanity. If we, our friends, and, say, the esteemed news anchor, instead of merely pointing to issues, took the time to explain the meaning and implications of a policy, we would realize how uninformed we are about matters and consequently begin to correct our views and become more moderate. This is perhaps the only way to shatter the illusion of explanatory depth and change people’s attitude toward their own ignorance.

One approach and our understanding of science is that it corrects humanity’s internal errors. In the laboratory, there is no room for bias toward a personal stance. Every experiment must yield repeatable results, which scientists with no bias toward confirming or refuting a particular conclusion must then analyze. This can be seen as the main reason for science’s success. At any given time, there may be a dispute or argument among scientists in one branch of science, but ultimately the scientific method is free of bias. Science advances even if we remain stuck in place.

In the book Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts That Will Save Us (Oxford University Press), Jack Gorman (a psychologist) and his daughter Sara Gorman (a public health specialist) examine the depth of the chasm arising from the contradiction between what we know and scientific reality. The article’s focus is primarily on scientific facts where the opposing public belief is deadly. Such as the notion that vaccination is dangerous. Specifically, vaccination is not dangerous. Vaccines were created precisely to make us resistant to diseases. The Gormans write: “Vaccination is one of the great triumphs of the modern world. But no matter how many studies and research show there is no link between vaccination and autism, opponents of vaccination do not change their stance. Meanwhile, Donald Trump has also stated that although he and his wife are vaccinated, they refused to vaccinate their son Barron according to the pediatrician’s schedule.

The Gormans write that this mode of thinking, which is now deadly for us, must certainly have been beneficial at some point in humanity's past. The two also devote considerable pages of their book to the confirmation bias and believe this subject has a physiological root. In a study they appended to their book, it was shown that people experience a state of intense delight and pleasure (high dopamine release) when reading information that confirms their views. Thus, open opposition and gathering together have a physiological pleasure. They say it is better to wear one's sword openly. It seems this is physiologically true as well.

In this book, the Gormans have not only tried to simply show the problems of in-group bias, but have also attempted to find a method by which to show people that not vaccinating is dangerous and keeping a gun at home is not a good idea (another belief they tried to demonstrate is false: that keeping a gun at home increases the safety of the people inside the home). But in this process, they encounter precisely the same problems they had previously listed. Giving people accurate and complete information does not cause them to change their minds. When faced with correct information, a person simply sets this information aside. Appealing to their emotions might prove more beneficial. But such an act is precisely the opposite of disseminating science and the scientific method. The Gormans conclude in their book: "What requires deeper contemplation are the roots of the tendency toward seemingly scientific false beliefs."

These three books discussed earlier all predate the November elections in the United States. Yet they all correctly predicted the emergence of fake news and figures like Kellyanne Conway. These days, the United States seems to have turned into a massive psychological testing ground, administered by people like Steve Bannon. Rational humans might be able to arrive at a fitting answer. But what the scientific books show is not so reassuring.

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Why Doesn't the Truth Change Our Minds?

Author: Elizabeth Kolbert

Translator: Farzin Souri

First published on the Sefid website

This article in the original language

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