Sep 02 2009
Normally Biased
Is there such a thing as a close-minded individual, a person who steers clear of information that could open his or her eyes to a more accurate view of the world?
In research into what boils down to the confirmation bias,* lead author Dolores Albarracin highlights this finding:
[P]eople who have little confidence in their own beliefs are less likely to expose themselves to contrary views than people who are very confident in their own ideas.
Aha! So close-minded individuals are actually insecure! Right? Wrong. Sure, armed with ideas gleaned from pop-psychology, we love to attribute character flaws to those who refuse to see the sense of our own worldview. But it is more complicated than that.
In fact, in Albarracin’s research she differentiated low-confidence individuals from those characterized as close-minded. And she did find that these second type of individuals were “reluctant to expose themselves to differing perspectives.” In one experiment, they chose to view information complimentary to their current beliefs close to 75% of the time.
Aha! So there you have it. A personality flaw, close-mindedness, causes people to be biased and less able to modify their thinking.
Yet an equally significant finding — perhaps more — is that the average person chose to view confirming information 67% of the time.
So “close-minded” individuals are not altogether different from average folk. Their selection bias is simply more pronounced.
Given the problem of the tendency for individuals to habitually expose themselves to confirming information over potentially disconfirming material, how can we counteract this bias in the effort to promote seeing the world more freely and hence clearly? Two ideas come to mind:
1. Encourage people (including yourself) to find sources of information just outside the edge of current beliefs and presented in an optimally tolerable format.
2. Encourage people (including yourself), to disengage the emotional and social selves from the intellectual while evaluating claims. As much as possible.
Additionally, I wonder: Is it possible that the 360 degree skeptic has a bit of a masochistic streak? Just as he/she takes pleasure in data that confirms his/her beliefs, he/she also finds excitement in intellectual challenge and adaptation. Can this be taught?
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* For other posts on the confirmation bias, see:
http://evolvingmind.info/blog/2009/03/science-and-active-attempts-at-disconfirmation/
http://evolvingmind.info/blog/2009/06/minds-open-in-potential-alone/
http://evolvingmind.info/blog/2009/08/dopamine-and-the-confirmation-bias/
http://evolvingmind.info/blog/2009/08/politics-religion-and-the-confirmation-bias/
