Rutgers researchers argue that facts matter and explain why beliefs are more reasonable than they appear, even when politics and science are at odds with the truth, conspiracy theories are on the rise, and disinformation is widespread. In the study, researchers analyzed previous research and developed a new scientific framework that, according to the researchers, explains the psychology of belief.
Those who do not change their beliefs in response to fresh facts may appear to be swayed by their desire to think something different. However, the researchers contend that believing is not as straightforward as it appears.
“Even if you desperately want to continue to believe that the sun is shining, so you don’t have to cancel a planned picnic, you cannot continue to believe it is not raining,”
said postdoctoral researcher and cognitive psychologist Joseph Sommer, from the Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science, explaining one of two belief processing types.
Desires and biases can control a second type of belief processing. If you wish to only consider evidence that supports your position and disregard opposing viewpoints, or if you wish to attempt to refute any arguments that contradict your beliefs, you are free to do so most of the time.
Conceptions of Rationality
So, why is this important? Sommer, who co-authored the study with Julien Musolino and Pernille Hemmer, associate professors of psychology and cognitive science at Rutgers University-New Brunswick’s School of Arts and Sciences, believes it shows that people are not immune to the truth and can be swayed by accurate information.
“This new research advances our knowledge about the psychology of belief, expands our conceptions of human rationality and opens the door to a deeper understanding of how and why people disagree about science and politics,”
Sommer said.
While it may not be easy, they believe that people can use the same reasoning skills to open themselves to updated facts rather than using reasoning and desire to gather rampant disinformation from social media and news sites to support their false beliefs.
“The problem is that they are never allowing evidence to reach their belief updating system. When they are presented with evidence, they spend a lot of effort explaining it away. By the time they’re done, there is no reason to update because they have entirely discredited the evidence,”
said Sommer.
The proposed framework identifies five component processes involved in belief (aside from updating):
- Evidence search
- Acceptance
- Hypothesis generation
- Integration of relevant knowledge
- Reasoning
The work also refers to a set of additional characteristics, such as information representation, thinking dispositions, and prior knowledge, that influence these evidence evaluation processes and help to determine which beliefs people develop.
Motivated Reasoning vs Belief Updating
Sommer claims that psychology has frequently given a dismal picture of how and why humans believe. The prevalent notion has been that people are mainly interested in confirming their existing beliefs, participate in motivated reasoning, and are vulnerable to cognitive biases.
“These observations seem to imply that beliefs are thoroughly irrational or even that people can believe whatever they want to, regardless of the facts of the matter,”
Sommer said.
The researchers contend that this is not the case. Though humans can manage confirmation bias and motivated reasoning, belief updating cannot be influenced by want or a desire for a different outcome.
While the desire to find evidence of fraud can debunk an argument and influence an individual’s reasoning and ability to make sound judgments, it cannot change their perception of facts. People can choose not to watch the news or change the channel because they are afraid of what they will hear, but they cannot dismiss the information unless they find evidence to back up their irrational beliefs, the paper argues.
Ideas, Beliefs, and Evidence
Does this mean that people who feel the 2020 presidential election result was false, despite proof to the contrary, could be influenced by evidence rather than desire? Or that people who disagree that climate change science is settled can be persuaded that global warming is occurring as a result of greenhouse gas trapping caused by human activity?
Researchers believe this is possible if people are exposed to the latest factual information. The difficulty is that many people only get a tiny amount of evidence from mainstream sources and much more pseudo-evidence from problematic sources, frequently convincing them that mainstream evidence can’t be trusted.
“This is not to say that presenting them with accurate evidence is a silver bullet. They are likely to disbelieve this evidence and work to discredit it, too. But this allows us to keep our efforts at the level of ideas, beliefs, and evidence rather than trying to deal with mysterious irrational reasons for belief.”
said Sommer.
Reference:
- Sommer, Joseph, Pernille Hemmer, and Julien Musolino. 2022. Updating, Evidence Evaluation, and Operator Availability: A Theoretical Framework for Understanding Belief. PsyArXiv. June 3. doi:10.31234/osf.io/3daxy.