How We Support Our False Beliefs

[morostheos]

What do you all think of this article?

[quote]How We Support Our False Beliefs

ScienceDaily (Aug. 23, 2009) — In a study published in the most recent issue of the journal Sociological Inquiry, sociologists from four major research institutions focus on one of the most curious aspects of the 2004 presidential election: the strength and resilience of the belief among many Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

Although this belief influenced the 2004 election, they claim it did not result from pro-Bush propaganda, but from an urgent need by many Americans to seek justification for a war already in progress.

The findings may illuminate reasons why some people form false beliefs about the pros and cons of health-care reform or regarding President Obama's citizenship, for example.

The study, "There Must Be a Reason: Osama, Saddam and Inferred Justification" calls such unsubstantiated beliefs "a serious challenge to democratic theory and practice" and considers how and why it was maintained by so many voters for so long in the absence of supporting evidence.

Co-author Steven Hoffman, Ph.D., visiting assistant professor of sociology at the University at Buffalo, says, "Our data shows substantial support for a cognitive theory known as 'motivated reasoning,' which suggests that rather than search rationally for information that either confirms or disconfirms a particular belief, people actually seek out information that confirms what they already believe.

"In fact," he says, "for the most part people completely ignore contrary information.

"The study demonstrates voters' ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information," he explains.

While numerous scholars have blamed a campaign of false information and innuendo from the Bush administration, this study argues that the primary cause of misperception in the 9/11-Saddam Hussein case was not the presence or absence of accurate data but a respondent's desire to believe in particular kinds of information.

"The argument here is that people get deeply attached to their beliefs," Hoffman says.

"We form emotional attachments that get wrapped up in our personal identity and sense of morality, irrespective of the facts of the matter. The problem is that this notion of 'motivated reasoning' has only been supported with experimental results in artificial settings. We decided it was time to see if it held up when you talk to actual voters in their homes, workplaces, restaurants, offices and other deliberative settings."

The survey and interview-based study was conducted by Hoffman, Monica Prasad, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology at Northwestern University; Northwestern graduate students Kieren Bezila and Kate Kindleberger; Andrew Perrin, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and UNC graduate students Kim Manturuk, Andrew R. Payton and Ashleigh Smith Powers (now an assistant professor of political science and psychology at Millsaps College).

The study addresses what it refers to as a "serious challenge to democratic theory and practice that results when citizens with incorrect information cannot form appropriate preferences or evaluate the preferences of others."

One of the most curious "false beliefs" of the 2004 presidential election, they say, was a strong and resilient belief among many Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Hoffman says that over the course of the 2004 presidential campaign, several polls showed that majorities of respondents believed that Saddam Hussein was either partly or largely responsible for the 9/11 attacks, a percentage that declined very slowly, dipping below 50 percent only in late 2003.

"This misperception that Hussein was responsible for the Twin Tower terrorist attacks was very persistent, despite all the evidence suggesting that no link existed," Hoffman says.

The study team employed a technique called "challenge interviews" on a sample of voters who reported believing in a link between Saddam and 9/11. The researchers presented the available evidence of the link, along with the evidence that there was no link, and then pushed respondents to justify their opinion on the matter. For all but one respondent, the overwhelming evidence that there was no link left no impact on their arguments in support of the link.

One unexpected pattern that emerged from the different justifications that subjects offered for continuing to believe in the validity of the link was that it helped citizens make sense of the Bush Administration's decision to go to war against Iraq.

"We refer to this as 'inferred justification,'" says Hoffman "because for these voters, the sheer fact that we were engaged in war led to a post-hoc search for a justification for that war.

"People were basically making up justifications for the fact that we were at war," he says.

"One of the things that is really interesting about this, from both the perspective of voting patterns but also for democratic theory more generally, Hoffman says, "is that we did not find that people were being duped by a campaign of innuendo so much as they were actively constructing links and justifications that did not exist.

"They wanted to believe in the link," he says, "because it helped them make sense of a current reality. So voters' ability to develop elaborate rationalizations based on faulty information, whether we think that is good or bad for democratic practice, does at least demonstrate an impressive form of creativity."
Adapted from materials provided by University at Buffalo.[/quote]

[VeniteAdoremus]

Very interesting. It does explain part of why the entire Hussein/9-11 link was never a topic in Europe... public opinion has always been Bin Laden -> Al Qaeda -> Afghanistan, Pakistan, and to a much smaller extent Chechnya. Our view of Saddam Hussein has always been that he was a (mad) dictator, not a (Muslim) terrorist.

We have also never had the view that "we" are at war, even though there were (are? I think they all left) Dutch troops in Iraq, and certainly are Dutch troops in Afghanistan.

[XIX]

Very interesting.

I need to keep an eye on this.

[thessalonian]

Here is a fascinating article regarding this topic.


http://mnemosynosis.livejournal.com/18273.html


The brain does not simply gather and stockpile information as a computer's hard drive does. Facts are stored first in the hippocampus, a structure deep in the brain about the size and shape of a fat man's curled pinkie finger. But the information does not rest there. Every time we recall it, our brain writes it down again, and during this re-storage, it is also reprocessed. In time, the fact is gradually transferred to the cerebral cortex and is separated from the context in which it was originally learned. For example, you know that the capital of California is Sacramento, but you probably don't remember how you learned it.

This phenomenon, known as source amnesia, can also lead people to forget whether a statement is true. Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true.

With time, this misremembering gets worse. A false statement from a noncredible source that is at first not believed can gain credibility during the months it takes to reprocess memories from short-term hippocampal storage to longer-term cortical storage. As the source is forgotten, the message and its implications gain strength...

...Psychologists have suggested that legends propagate by striking an emotional chord. In the same way, ideas can spread by emotional selection, rather than by their factual merits, encouraging the persistence of falsehoods...

...Journalists and campaign workers may think they are acting to counter misinformation by pointing out that it is not true. But by repeating a false rumor, they may inadvertently make it stronger. In its concerted effort to "stop the smears," the Obama campaign may want to keep this in mind. Rather than emphasize that Obama is not a Muslim, for instance, it may be more effective to stress that he embraced Christianity as a young man.

In 1919, Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes of the Supreme Court wrote that "the best test of truth is the power of the thought to get itself accepted in the competition of the market." Holmes erroneously assumed that ideas are more likely to spread if they are honest. Our brains do not naturally obey this admirable dictum, but by better understanding the mechanisms of memory perhaps we can move closer to Holmes' ideal. Link

Epistemology prefers to examine the value of truth, over other values such as moral impact, belief coherence, desire for social approval or emotional saliency. This emphasis goes hand-in-hand with treating memory as a passive mechanism, i.e., 'poo-in/poo-out'. The metaphor of memory as a simple storage and retrieval device does nothing to explain belief revision and why false beliefs may sometimes be justified, rational or valuable to individuals, regardless of their veritistic value.

[thessalonian]

The article above and the opening post provide indications of why it is by the grace of God that we are in the fullness of the truth of the Catholic Church. That, while Catholicism is reasonable, reason does not bring the common man to it simply by his own thinking. It is above our ability to reason.

[Kitty]

I think that article could also apply to religion.

[thessalonian]

[quote name='Kitty' date='23 August 2009 - 03:11 PM' timestamp='1251054686' post='1955013']
I think that article could also apply to religion.
[/quote]

Yes, very much. That was my point. It is entirely fascinating when applied to religion.

[dairygirl4u2c]

people sure did seem transfixed on the idea that there was a connection.

they'd point to something like the idea that saddam talked to terrorists like nine years before the attack, as if that was substantial enough of a basis to say there was a link.
sure, evidence might've started to come in a little more here or there. but it was always a 'this is my belief already established, now i'm going to do what it takes to prove it'. and you knew that's what they were doing, cause they started out with such little evidence, while insisting as they did.
even credible, or 'smart' people, like ironmonk.
i guess, if that's enough evidence, for you.
but for most people, it wouldn't have been. and without that pscological thing mentioned in this thread, i doubt it'd be enough even for many of the ones who thought it was enough.

[thessalonian]

Sure makes the passage "trust not in your own understanding but rely on the Lord" prov 3:5 make alot of sense.

[eagle_eye222001]

[quote name='Kitty' date='23 August 2009 - 03:11 PM' timestamp='1251054686' post='1955013']
I think that article could also apply to religion.
[/quote]

It applies to everything.

Humans by nature don't like being wrong. We like to see ourselves be correct, especially with big beliefs like politics and religion.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='eagle_eye222001' date='23 August 2009 - 11:01 PM' timestamp='1251079281' post='1955303']
It applies to everything.

Humans by nature don't like being wrong. We like to see ourselves be correct, especially with big beliefs like politics and religion.
[/quote]

...and the weather.