'Motivated ignorance' or why do people insist they believe in things that are not true?

[malloo]

Mulling over why this might be and came across this interesting paper, worth a look if you have a long lockdown evening to fill! It uses the example of climate change deniers but applies equally to lots of current issues around trans ideology, Covid deniers etc.

Motivated ignorance, rationality, and democratic politics
Daniel Miller Synthese (2020)
link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-020-02549-8

A few quotes from the paper:

Why do members of the public disagree—sharply and persistently—about facts on which expert scientists largely agree?

As with religious and ideological communities more generally, dissent from group dogmas and sacred propositions can issue in harmful forms of group ostracism, even when such heresies are best supported by the available evidence.

issues such as climate change motivate individuals to engage in identity protective cognition, conforming the way in which they seek out and process information to the goal of protecting their political-coalitional identity rather than arriving at the truth. Specifically, because the positions that people take on climate change and related issues have become badges of coalitional affiliation and loyalty, individuals are incentivised “to attend to information in a manner that promotes beliefs that signal their commitment to the position associated with their group"

although this phenomenon is individually (instrumentally) rational, it is socially catastrophic: if a large number of people in a democracy conform the way in which they seek out, ignore and process information to the goal of protecting their coalitional identity rather than achieving knowledge, the resultant ignorance will then likely play an important role in political decision-making.

how do unfounded beliefs about matters of empirical fact become signals of coalitional membership and loyalty to begin with?.....beliefs that perform such signalling functions are inherently biased towards implausibility, both because out-group members have no evidential reason to hold such beliefs and because the reputational damage associated with believing absurdities generates a costlier—and so more reliable—signal of coalitional loyalty

noted the work of feminist philosophers and critical philosophers of race who have drawn attention to the way in which members of elite and powerful demographic groups wilfully avoid—and, more generally, benefit from ignorance of—aspects of the lives of oppressed groups in society

Interested to hear what others think!

Ostracism is a very, very powerful weapon as anyone who's been on the receiving end of it knows. Most of us will do almost anything to stay on the right side of our social circle, even when we know we are right and they are wrong.

There's a line in one of Paul's epistles which always stuck in my mind from my days as a practising Christian (now well and truly lapsed and agnostic): "Becoming fools for Christ."

A lot of religions/ extreme political movements/ extremist groups require their members to believe the unscientific/illogical/internally inconsistent as a test of loyalty.

If you're trying to start a movement which divides insiders from outsiders, and you want to make sure of the loyalty of your followers at a level that goes right to the core of their being emotionally and psychologically, getting them to repeat and assent to batshit crazy mantras isn't a bug, it's a feature.

It's one of the most effective ways of getting people to suspend their critical faculties, and once you've to them to do this, they're yours for a long, long time (barring elaborate "deprogramming" techniques).

2+2 = 5 if the party says it is, Winston.

I think it can be a defence mechanism, when someone is pointing out a truth but you suspect their motives for doing so (perhaps because they seem really angry about it all and you've been led to believe that their side are ignorant meanies).

"But why can't we just say that the earth is flat and be kind to flat-earthers? Anyway, what does flat really mean? Does it really matter? Why would you go on about this when it's hurting people's feelings? Any civilised person would just agree that the word "flat" has a broader definition than your frankly quite old-fashioned and even perhaps bigoted one. Look, an obscure research paper apparently quoted on Twitter backs me up, so it's science now!"

I think all kinds of psychological motivations can create this sort of behaviour. And pressure to conform can be high, you can see that in many different scenarios.

But I also think that it can be easy to tell yourself others are being irrational when really they are starting from a different set of premises, or they weigh things up differently. It's also common for people to automatically distrust information and analysis from people they distrust for some reason. Quite possibly good ones.

@BlackForestCake

Ostracism is a very, very powerful weapon as anyone who's been on the receiving end of it knows. Most of us will do almost anything to stay on the right side of our social circle, even when we know we are right and they are wrong.

This is so true.

Social control mechanisms are truly fascinating, and it's my firm belief you can extrapolate the dynamics from smaller, niche, religious groups and see them evident quite clearly in the Genderist movement.

I could definitely write a book on it, but I doubt I would be permitted to publish it.

This is interesting. It's similar to what I call strategic ignorance, which I've noticed particularly in men that I know. They don't want to get involved in the gender identity debate as that would mean they would have to take a definite view and perhaps alienate some people, so they are careful not to find out too much about it.

I read something about this recently. Pressure to conform to the beliefs held by our group is far more powerful than any logical argument. The more facts that are presented as evidence the more entrenched our views become, rather than us reflecting on the evidence and changing our opinion. There has been research done on this around attitudes to climate change and how that skews left/right.

@ariel333

Yes I can see that too. A certain mouthy well-known person wrote a chapter about gender identity in his recently published book. For someone who has a definite opinion on everything, he was strangely ... vague .. about this.

My sister is very intelligent and is always getting caught up in all sorts of woo.

What I find interesting is that she does know it's bollocks. I'm much more on the sciency/rationalist side of things and she knows that if she tries to evangelise the woo onto me I will argue back. (I don't try to argue about her beliefs unprovoked though.)

So often she starts being defensive and saying "I know you'll say it doesn't make sense but..." and so on. Then when the latest woo fad turns out not to be the answer to everything, she agrees it was nonsense. But then she moves onto the next one.

To me it seems like the just needs to believe something magical and mysterious will solve all her problems. It's an emotional need and that's how she deals with it. You can see her trying to mentally shove away rational thought so she can get on with the next woo quest IYSWIM.

A key issue is that over the last 20 years there has been a loss of trust in previously trusted sources of information. The classic quote is "the people have had enough of experts" but it would be more accurate to state people have become suspicious of vested interests.

Take for example the North American Free Trade Agreement - widely proclaimed for a long time to be only beneficial and wealth generating. Well yes, overall wealth increased but it is now acceptable to acknowledge it had a massively disproportionate impact on lower income workers and led to income inequality. The politicisation of NAFTA meant anyone who challenged this in MSM for a long time was dismissed as old fashioned and probably racist.

Similarly, if the BBC are telling me things I know to be untrue about sex and gender identity, I'm going to be a lot more suspicious when they talk about things I'm not as read up on. In fact, if The Times or another paper who has refused to call rapists women, or say women can have penises, contradict the BBC on something like climate change, is it surprising that I may think they're telling the truth?

CaraDuneRedux
getting them to repeat and assent to batshit crazy mantras isn't a bug, it's a feature.

Yes! This was the point that really hadn't occurred to me before, I kept puzzling over it but this really gets to the heart of what has to be going on here.

I think the idea of people aligning themselves with an identity is just what humans (especially young people) do, I certainly can remember wanting to do things to be more like the group I wanted to be part of. I suppose it just feels more extreme now (or maybe just I'm old!), perhaps because instead of just seeing some people you think look cool but who are definitely just people, now you go on the internet and can pick and choose from these ready made branded identities which are very slick and ramp up more quickly to get people to go to the next level and take a leap of faith to prove their commitment. And like BlackForestCake says the fear of being ostracised is so strong there is never a point at which questioning it feels like an option.

Agree also what others have said about not trusting sources of information. I thought for a long time that if the BBC wrote something it had to be true because they were a reputable news agency. Ha ha! But again, if you don't know which, if any, organisations to trust then you are more likely to think that a random person on the internet who claims to be your friend/ real family will tell the truth because you think they have your best interests at heart.

I worry about all this as my kids try and navigate their way through it, glad I'm not a teenager just now.

This is interesting. It's similar to what I call strategic ignorance, which I've noticed particularly in men that I know. They don't want to get involved in the gender identity debate as that would mean they would have to take a definite view and perhaps alienate some people, so they are careful not to find out too much about it.

YY

@MoltenLasagne

A key issue is that over the last 20 years there has been a loss of trust in previously trusted sources of information. The classic quote is "the people have had enough of experts" but it would be more accurate to state people have become suspicious of vested interests.

Take for example the North American Free Trade Agreement - widely proclaimed for a long time to be only beneficial and wealth generating. Well yes, overall wealth increased but it is now acceptable to acknowledge it had a massively disproportionate impact on lower income workers and led to income inequality. The politicisation of NAFTA meant anyone who challenged this in MSM for a long time was dismissed as old fashioned and probably racist.

Similarly, if the BBC are telling me things I know to be untrue about sex and gender identity, I'm going to be a lot more suspicious when they talk about things I'm not as read up on. In fact, if The Times or another paper who has refused to call rapists women, or say women can have penises, contradict the BBC on something like climate change, is it surprising that I may think they're telling the truth?

Yes, the lack of trust is central to this. People no longer trust, not only the media, but the scientific establishment. And why should they? They've been burned. It's been an ongoing problem since the mid 20th century, beginning with things like the Vietnam war, environmental cover-ups, the tobacco company research, the sugar lobby, Monsanto executives being high level presidential advisors, I could go on.