Why flat Earthers and Holocaust-deniers won't change their mind: Researchers say some people's brains are wired to value feedback over facts
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Some people swear vehemently by their beliefs despite overwhelming evidence contradicting their standpoint.
It’s a phenomenon that’s given rise to movements such as the ‘flat Earthers’ and climate change deniers, among many others in recent times.
While it might seem baffling, new research suggests it may have something to do with how we value feedback compared to hard evidence.
In a new study, researchers found that the positive and negative reactions that spring up in response to people’s opinions tend to hold more weight than logic or scientific data.
This feedback, which can play out in personal exchanges or across social media, can bolster a person’s certainty in their own beliefs.
‘If you think you know a lot about something, even though you don’t, you’re less likely to be curious enough to explore the topic further, and will fail to learn how little you know,’ said study lead author Louis Marti, a PhD student in psychology at UC Berkeley.
In the study, researchers at the University of California, Berkeley recruited more than 500 adults for an online task on Amason’s Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing platform.
The experiment called on participants to look at different combinations of shapes and identify which qualified as a made-up object called a ‘Daxxy.’
Participants were given no information about the characteristics of this shape, but received feedback on whether their guesses were right or wrong as they played.
The study was designed to investigate what influences a person’s certainty during the learning process, the researchers explain.
‘If you use a crazy theory to make a correct prediction a couple of times, you can get stuck in that belief and may not be as interested in gathering more information,’ said study senior author Celeste Kidd, an assistant professor of psychology at UC Berkeley.
Each participant was asked to report on their certainty following each guess.
BELIEVE IN CONSPIRACY THEORIES? YOU'RE PROBABLY A NARCISSIST, RESEARCHERS SAY
People who doubt the moon landings are more likely to be selfish and attention-seeking, according to a recent study.
Over the course of three online-based studies, researchers at the University of Kent showed strong links between the belief in conspiracy theories and negative psychological traits.
Writing in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, the team explained: 'Previous research linked the endorsement of conspiracy theories to low self-esteem.'
In the first study, a total of 202 participants completed questionnaires on conspiracy beliefs, asking how strongly they agreed with specific statements, such as whether governments carried out acts of terrorism on their own soil.
Alongside this, they were asked to complete a narcissist scale and a self-esteem assessment.
The results showed that those people who rated highly on the narcissism scale and who had low self-esteem were more likely to be conspiracy believers.
And, the researchers found they only considered the recent feedback, as opposed to the cumulative information.
The participants consistently based their certainty on how they did in the last four or five guesses, the researchers said.
‘What we found interesting is that they could get the first 19 guesses in a row wrong, but if they got the last five right, they felt very confident,’ Marti said.
‘It’s not that they weren’t paying attention, they were learning what a Daxxy was, but they weren’t using most of what they learned to inform their certainty.’
‘If your goal is to arrive at the truth, the strategy of using your most recent feedback, rather than all of the data you’ve accumulated, is not a great tactic,’ Marti said.
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