Could I be wrong? Exploring research on cognitive bias, curiosity, intellectual humility, and lifelong learning

A few years ago, I asked a sample of adults to think about all of the disagreements that they have with other people, from minor disagreements about relatively unimportant issues to major disagreements about important matters. Then, I asked them to estimate the percentage of disagreements they have with other people in which they are the one who is correct. Only 4% of the respondents indicated they were right less than half of the time, and only 14% said they were right half of the time. The vast majority—a whopping 82%—reported that, when they disagreed with other people, they were usually the one who was right! (Pause a moment to ask yourself the same question: In what percentage of the disagreements that you have with other people are you the one who’s right?) Research on the overconfidence bias shows that people regularly overestimate their abilities, knowledge, and beliefs. For example, when researchers ask people how certain they are that their answers to questions of fact are correct, people’s confidence consistently exceeds the actual accuracy of their answers. Psychologist Scott Plous has noted that overconfidence is not only the most pervasive bias that plagues human thinking and decision-making, but it’s also the most “catastrophic” in that it leads to bad decisions and other negative outcomes. The first step in dealing with overconfidence is for people to realize that much of what they believe to be true might, in fact, be incorrect. Psychologists ca...
Source: SharpBrains - Category: Neuroscience Authors: Tags: Education & Lifelong Learning cognitive cognitive biases cognitive entrenchment curiosity disagreement intellectual humility Lifelong-learning meta-cognitive overconfidence bias Source Type: blogs