Let’s talk about people with biased beliefs
There is a popular belief about identifying our heart with feelings and our brain with everything rational. But as you can imagine, it's a mistake. Irrationality is part of the functioning of our nervous system, which includes our own brain.
One of the characteristic of our behavior in which this irrational aspect is most notable is the cognitive biases, that is, distortions in the way we reason that usually are unconscious and involuntary, confirmatory bias is probably the most common example of this, it happens way more than we might think and it results in having biased beliefs.
Hints from psychological literature suggest that information, regardless of valence, is encoded within the mind, but isn’t necessarily used to update beliefs. | Source
What is this all about?
Well, confirmatory bias is a pretty common concept, “this is our tendency to pay closer attention to evidence and arguments that support our own firmly held conclusions, and to simply discount contradictory evidence. This could partially explain the tendency of large numbers of people to hold fast to their attachments to one political party or another. Once we decide, we don't like to re-decide.” | Source
According to the above definition, this issue is simply about having the propensity to give more importance and credibility to the information that fit our beliefs than to those that contradict them, even if both points have sufficient data backing them up equally, which will mean than any objective person would remain neutral, but this is not the case with someone who suffers from bias that are capable of clouding his judgment.
This bias is not only negative because it makes it difficult for our ideas to change, which can be a huge problem if our ideas are mistaken. In addition, under its influence there is the possibility of believing that totally questionable thoughts are some kind of revealed truths and purely objective knowledge that would be unwise to put under suspicion. That is to say, this is the worst enemy of the objective mind, given that it constantly reinforces the ideas that we have automatically decided to believe at all costs, without analyzing anything.
What roles does cognitive dissonance have on this?
It is actually at the center of everything because it consists of the feeling of discomfort that we experience when an idea comes into conflict with one of our beliefs.
Cognitive dissonance refers to a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance, etc. | Source
Sometimes we learn to manage this discomfort in a constructive way by modifying our explanations about reality, and sometimes we do not get it and we simply manipulate those ideas in any way so that the importance of what we have been believing from before prevails.
To better understand what biased beliefs is all about and the way in which cognitive dissonance can be mismanaged, I will share with you some examples to help clarify this subject even more.
Examples about this
Let’s imagine that a person after visiting some websites belonging to a racist and extremist group, begins to think about the idea that the immigrant population of several under developed countries is less intelligent than him.
According to this perspective, the poverty and the low scientific development that are present in these regions would be due to a lower intelligence in the population. This is an attractive idea, because it gives him a simple explanation about a fact that he previously thought was more complex, and thanks to this, and even if he does not realize it, that person begins to associate the poverty and misfortunes suffered in these areas to the supposed low intelligence of the people living there.
However, since his ideas are very different than the ones of many of his friends and family, this person's beliefs are soon confronted. Some say that taking for granted the intellectual inferiority of the immigrant is completely wrong, therefore the person realizes that whoever replies in this way is known to be an activist opposed to him, and ends up assuming that those opposed to him have a vision of reality distorted by propaganda. This means that he does not take into account anything that opposes his views, he intermediate ignores it.
In the future, this person will look at all the representations of immigrant people that appear in public and in the media, and every time he sees a murder case by an immigrant, for example, he will attribute it to the “impossibility” of this immigrant to have a civilized life. On the other hand, when he sees another immigrant who has been successful in life and has excellent education and discipline, he will attribute it to the influence that the local people (non immigrants) have had on him.
The fact is, no matter what happens, this person will not change his believes about immigrant people, no matter what argument is presented, he has already made up his mind, and there is no way to change it.
Of course, there could tons of more examples about this, like when it comes to different ideological views which is always a very delicate subject with a lot of fanatics.
Conclusion
As we have seen in the example, having biased beliefs can have dramatic consequences in the way we interpret reality. For example, it can make the simpleness of a belief to be seen as a positive aspect of it, regardless of the dangers of simplification, it can lead us to circular thinking, because such a simple belief explains everything and at the same time does not explain anything.
Why would one fail to use information that is available to them? From what we’ve seen, people are willing to update their beliefs in the presence of good news but not bad news. By definition, good news is attractive and bad news is aversive. | Source
The people that have the tendency to adopt biased beliefs let every experience that can be used to reinforce said beliefs capture their attention immediately, while those that contradict them are ignored, avoiding anything that could threaten their own way of interpreting the world.
Have you ever adopted biased beliefs deliberately? If so, why?
References
psychologytoday – biased beliefs
simplypsychology – cognitive dissonance
psychologytoday – believing what you want to believe
yale.edu - Mechanisms of Optimistically Biased Belief Formation
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all beliefs are biased.
That's redundant.
they can't exist any other way.
Have to agree with you. Beliefs are founded partially on facts and partially on desired outcomes. What people want will ultimately guide their thought process and create biased assessments of situations.
Hey there @everittdmickey!
I am not sure if all beliefs can be considered biased, there can always be objective and neutral arguments, but its clear the fact that its better to try to be as objective as possible.
Will you follow me? 😊 @a-0-0
This is a really interesting read and reminds me of many things from both my study of international political psychology (notably how conflicts leading up to wars start and how Fascism gains a foothold where once freedom prevailed) and also my study of Buddhism.
I recall a conversation some years ago with a Buddhist teacher in which I was venting about having learned all these unfavorable things about some very "high" Buddhist teachers and sexual abuse of female aspirants. I was pissed and letting him have it.
It was an interesting conversation in general, but the thing that's stayed with me the most from it was his comment that, "There is no Buddhism; that's just a myth. The path of awakening is the path of disillusionment. We have to let ago of all our illusions, especially our illusions about the Dharma."
I would say that the primary antidote to the very human tendencies you describe in this article is to learn to embrace the process of disillusionment as the path of maturation itself.
I am not familiar with the concept of "Dharma" in the context you are describing.
Well, I would have to learn about this way of seeing the world. In my case, I am not sure if disillusionment is something good, I think that the future will be better than our present, just as our present is better than our past, all thanks to technological innovations which are the ones that change and improve our world.
But, it is always interesting to read and learn about different points of views :D
Thanks for stopping by and for your great comment @indigoocean!
He was saying that we have all these lofty ideas in our head about the teachings and the teachers. We imagine them as something above us and we have to give up that hero worship. Disillusionment in the Buddhist context doesn't mean despair. It means literally removing (dis) illusions (false perceptions). It's about coming to see the world as it is, not as we wish it would be. That is actually more optimistic, because it says that reality is good enough without our needing to pretend in order to make peace with it.
I would add from my other spiritual leanings that in addition to sorting out what is with equanimity there is also the matter of clearly defining what we wish to see come into being. Using our imaginations to envision the future we want to create, for ourselves and collectively, is a part of what it is to be human.
Hi @dedicatedguy I think almost all of us have some biased belief, but it seems some people are more prone to than others! For example, I've noticed for example some people will only own brand A, whilst others will do a cost/benefit analysis and buy whatever brand scores best.
Of course, not everyone is the same. And I see what you mean with brand A, some brands simply have serious fans no matter the product they release. Achieving that level of faithfulness in the market is surely not easy.
This got me. But the question is, how can one identify bias?
In my opinion, we must find the way to develop a strong sense of objectivity, and be able to apply it even in circumstances we don't want.
But the possibility of some person capable of developing absolute objectivity is debatable.
Rightly said (or typed 😁)
Well.. If we look at every belief there is a biased part that makes you want to believe in it.
So nothing can change that belief
I feel that I'm pretty good at accepting of being wrong, or just having an open mind, but of course that's just my belief LOL.
I have had plenty of discussions with people who are biased, and it's frustrating when none of your arguments are convincing because the person simply refuses to even consider them. I see this a lot when I try to talk about veganism with hardcore meat eaters, but also when discussing politics. I'm thinking of Trump voters who still don't regret their choice, even though they must see that their candidate is not doing things as promised.
My question is, how do you deal with that?
Oh no! please don't go that way because I love eating meat @evecab LOL!
In my opinion if the other person is totally closed when it comes to considering different positions, it is not worth it to waste time discussing with them. The end result would be frustration for both. So, if I were you, and there is no way to have a productive debate, then I will simply leave it at that and move on with my life.
PS: I hope your trip is going well btw :)
ahahaahha @dedicatedguy, sorry about the meat thing LOL. I know you are not a closed person though, so maybe still worth discussing some day if you're interested ;)
My trip is going good so far, thank you! I'm starting to miss the Panama sun though...
I am also guilty on this because oftentimes I am being swayed right away with biased beliefs. Not knowing that sometimes my conclusions are irrational and wrong. Amazing article as always @dedicatedguy another addition to the wonderful world of psychology.
Well at least you are capable of identifying it, otherwise you wouldn't be able to shared it :)
Thanks for your kind words!
😊