{"id":19509,"date":"2020-02-02T09:39:04","date_gmt":"2020-02-02T09:39:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=19509"},"modified":"2020-02-04T04:40:55","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T04:40:55","slug":"humans-are-hardwired-to-dismiss-facts-that-dont-fit-their-worldview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/humans-are-hardwired-to-dismiss-facts-that-dont-fit-their-worldview\/","title":{"rendered":"Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adrian Bardon<\/a>, Wake Forest University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Something is rotten in the state of American political life. The U.S. (among other nations) is increasingly characterized by highly polarized, informationally insulated ideological communities occupying their own factual universes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Within the conservative political blogosphere, global warming<\/a> is either a hoax or so uncertain as to be unworthy of response. Within other geographic or online communities, vaccines<\/a>, fluoridated water<\/a> and genetically modified foods<\/a> are known to be dangerous. Right-wing media outlets<\/a> paint a detailed picture of how Donald Trump is the victim of a fabricated conspiracy.<\/p>\n

None of that is correct, though. The reality of human-caused global warming is settled science<\/a>. The alleged link between vaccines and autism has been debunked<\/a> as conclusively as anything in the history of epidemiology. It\u2019s easy to find authoritative refutations<\/a> of Donald Trump\u2019s self-exculpatory claims regarding Ukraine and many other issues.<\/p>\n

Yet many well-educated people sincerely deny evidence-based conclusions on these matters.<\/p>\n

In theory, resolving factual disputes should be relatively easy: Just present evidence of a strong expert consensus. This approach succeeds most of the time, when the issue is, say, the atomic weight of hydrogen.<\/p>\n

But things don\u2019t work that way when the scientific consensus presents a picture that threatens someone\u2019s ideological worldview. In practice, it turns out that one\u2019s political, religious or ethnic identity quite effectively predicts one\u2019s willingness to accept expertise on any given politicized issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cMotivated reasoning<\/a>\u201d is what social scientists call the process of deciding what evidence to accept based on the conclusion one prefers. As I explain in my book, \u201cThe Truth About Denial<\/a>,\u201d this very human tendency applies to all kinds of facts about the physical world, economic history and current events.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The same facts will sound different to people depending on what they already believe.<\/span>
\nAP Photo\/John Raoux<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Denial doesn\u2019t stem from ignorance<\/h2>\n

The interdisciplinary study of this phenomenon has exploded over just the last six or seven years. One thing has become clear: The failure of various groups to acknowledge the truth about, say, climate change, is not explained by a lack of information<\/a> about the scientific consensus on the subject.<\/p>\n

Instead, what strongly predicts denial of expertise on many controversial topics is simply one\u2019s political persuasion.<\/p>\n

A 2015 metastudy<\/a> showed that ideological polarization over the reality of climate change actually increases with respondents\u2019 knowledge of politics, science and\/or energy policy. The chances that a conservative is a climate change denier is significantly higher<\/a> if he or she is college-educated. Conservatives scoring highest on tests for cognitive sophistication<\/a> or quantitative reasoning skills<\/a> are most susceptible to motivated reasoning about climate science.<\/p>\n

This is not just a problem for conservatives. As researcher Dan Kahan<\/a> has demonstrated<\/a>, liberals are less likely to accept expert consensus on the possibility of safe storage of nuclear waste, or on the effects of concealed-carry gun laws.<\/p>\n

Denial is natural<\/h2>\n

Our ancestors evolved in small groups, where cooperation and persuasion<\/a> had at least as much to do with reproductive success as holding accurate factual beliefs about the world. Assimilation into one\u2019s tribe required assimilation into the group\u2019s ideological belief system. An instinctive bias in favor of one\u2019s \u201cin-group<\/a>\u201d and its worldview is deeply ingrained in human psychology.<\/p>\n

A human being\u2019s very sense of self is intimately tied up with<\/a> his or her identity group\u2019s status and beliefs. Unsurprisingly, then, people respond automatically and defensively to information that threatens their ideological worldview. We respond with rationalization and selective assessment of evidence \u2013 that is, we engage in \u201cconfirmation bias<\/a>,\u201d giving credit to expert testimony we like and find reasons to reject the rest.<\/p>\n

Political scientists Charles Taber<\/a> and Milton Lodge<\/a> experimentally confirmed the existence of this automatic response<\/a>. They found that partisan subjects, when presented with photos of politicians, produce an affective \u201clike\/dislike\u201d response that precedes any sort of conscious, factual assessment as to who is pictured.<\/p>\n

In ideologically charged situations, one\u2019s prejudices end up affecting one\u2019s factual beliefs. Insofar as you define yourself in terms of your cultural affiliations<\/a>, information that threatens your belief system \u2013 say, information about the negative effects of industrial production on the environment \u2013 can threaten your sense of identity itself. If it\u2019s part of your ideological community\u2019s worldview that unnatural things are unhealthful, factual information about a scientific consensus on vaccine or GM food safety feels like a personal attack.<\/p>\n

Unwelcome information can also threaten in other ways. \u201cSystem justification<\/a>\u201d theorists like psychologist John Jost<\/a> have shown how situations that represent a threat to established systems trigger inflexible thinking and a desire for closure. For example, as Jost and colleagues extensively review, populations experiencing economic distress or external threat have often turned to authoritarian, hierarchicalist leaders<\/a> promising security and stability.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Everyone sees the world through one partisan lens or another, based on their identity and beliefs.<\/span>
\nVladyslav Starozhylov\/Shutterstock.com<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Denial is everywhere<\/h2>\n

This kind of affect-laden, motivated thinking explains a wide range of examples of an extreme, evidence-resistant rejection of historical fact and scientific consensus.<\/p>\n

Have tax cuts been shown to pay for themselves in terms of economic growth? Do communities with high numbers of immigrants have higher rates of violent crime? Did Russia interfere in the 2016 U.S. presidential election? Predictably, expert opinion regarding such matters is treated by partisan media as though evidence is itself inherently partisan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Denialist phenomena are many and varied, but the story behind them is, ultimately, quite simple. Human cognition is inseparable from the unconscious emotional responses that go with it. Under the right conditions, universal human traits like in-group favoritism, existential anxiety and a desire for stability and control combine into a toxic, system-justifying identity politics.<\/p>\n

When group interests, creeds, or dogmas are threatened by unwelcome factual information, biased thinking becomes denial. And unfortunately these facts about human nature can be manipulated for political ends<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This picture is a bit grim, because it suggests that facts alone have limited power to resolve politicized issues like climate change or immigration policy. But properly understanding the phenomenon of denial is surely a crucial first step to addressing it.<\/p>\n

[ Deep knowledge, daily.<\/em> Sign up for The Conversation\u2019s newsletter<\/a>. ]\"The<\/p>\n

Adrian Bardon<\/a>, Professor of Philosophy, Wake Forest University<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Adrian Bardon, Wake Forest University Something is rotten in the state of American political life. The U.S. (among other nations) is increasingly characterized by highly polarized, informationally insulated ideological communities occupying their own factual universes. Within the conservative political blogosphere, global warming is either a hoax or so uncertain as to be unworthy of response. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":19510,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[3633,7622,3221,412,5818,7623,13,228,3634],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19509"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19509"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19525,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19509\/revisions\/19525"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}