Facts Don't Win Fights: Here’s How to Cut Through Confirmation Bias | Tali Sharot
If you want someone to see an issue rationally, you just show them the facts, right? No one can refute a fact. Well, brain imaging and psychological studies are showing that, society wide,...
==========
So most of us think that information is the best way to convince people of our truth, and in fact it doesn’t work that well.We see that all the time. We see it with climate change, where there’s tons of data suggesting that climate change is man-made but about 50 percent of the population doesn’t believe it, or with people arguing about things like how many people were in the presidential inauguration. So we have facts but people decide which facts they want to listen to, which facts they want to take and change their opinions, and which they want to disregard. And one of the reasons for this is when something doesn’t conform to what I already believe, what people tend to do is either disregard it or rationalize it away; because information doesn’t ...
==========
So most of us think that information is the best way to convince people of our truth, and in fact it doesn’t work that well.We see that all the time. We see it with climate change, where there’s tons of data suggesting that climate change is man-made but about 50 percent of the population doesn’t believe it, or with people arguing about things like how many people were in the presidential inauguration. So we have facts but people decide which facts they want to listen to, which facts they want to take and change their opinions, and which they want to disregard. And one of the reasons for this is when something doesn’t conform to what I already believe, what people tend to do is either disregard it or rationalize it away; because information doesn’t ...
