Why do people believe they’re right, even when they are wrong?
Socrates said: “You don’t know what you don’t know”. And this was a long time before family gatherings around the dinner table and work meetings. But why do we have such strong opinions, despite not having all the information? Why don’t we take into account that there might be another way to consider or approach a situation? A team of American researchers claim the answer lies in our cognitive bias. People so convinced that they’re right and the other person is so wrong may suffer from what is known as the illusion of information adequacy. The study was published in the journal ‘PLOS ONE’.
Know-alls
“We found that, in general, people don’t stop to think whether there might be more information that would help them make a more informed decision,” study co-author Angus Fletcher, professor of English at The Ohio State University, commented in a news release. “If you give people a few pieces of information that seems to line up, most will say ‘that sounds about right’ and go with that.” In an online study, 1 261 Americans were divided into three groups. Each group was asked to read an article about a fictional school short on adequate water. One group’s article only gave reasons why the school should merge with another that had a sufficient supply. Another group’s article only gave reasons against. The third group’s article gave all the reasons to merge the schools and to separate them. The results showed that the two groups given reasons for or against a merger still believed they had enough information to make an informed decision. What’s more, they believed most others would make a similar decision to theirs.
The truth is out there
“Those with only half the information were actually more confident in their decision to merge or remain separate than those who had the complete story,” Fletcher stated. “They were quite sure that their decision was the right one, even though they didn’t have all the information.” He recommended that people should first ensure they have the full picture before adopting a position or reaching a decision. “As we found in this study, there’s this default mode in which people think they know all the relevant facts, even if they don’t,” Fletcher explained. “Your first move when you disagree with someone should be to think, ‘Is there something that I’m missing that would help me see their perspective and understand their position better?’ That’s the way to fight this illusion of information adequacy.”
Keywords
right, wrong, cognitive bias, decision, opinion, information, illusion of information adequacy