Blinded By Ideology: People Find It Difficult To Think Logically About Arguments That Contradict Their Politics

This study can’t contribute to the debate over whether liberals or conservatives are more likely to commit such errors, the researchers write, because the stimuli weren’t constructed to be equally polarising to the two “sides” (though some prior research suggest both tribes are equally vulnerable). It also doesn’t tell us what can be done about this sort of ill-formed reasoning. Though on that front, at least, Gampa, Wojcik, and their colleagues do have some ideas: “A takeaway from this research… may be that reasoners should strive to be epistemologically humble. If logical reasoning is to serve as the antidote to the poison of partisan gridlock, we must begin by acknowledging that it does not merely serve our objectivity, but also our biases.” That is, people should dispense themselves of the notion that when they sit down to reason a problem through carefully, the act of doing so automatically shields them from the effects of political bias. Because bias isn’t a problem endemic to any one political movement: It’s a problem endemic to having a human brain. —(Ideo)Logical Reasoning: Ideology Impairs Sound Reasoning Post written by Jesse Singal (@JesseSingal) for the BPS Research Digest. Jesse is a contributing writer at BPS Research Digest and New York Magazine. He is working on a book about why shoddy behavioral-science claims sometimes go viral for Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Source: BPS RESEARCH DIGEST - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: Cognition Political Thought Source Type: blogs