What you believe always turns out to be true, but not always right. Psychological studies have proved that objectivity doesn’t really count when it comes to questioning a particular subject matter as long an individual already has a particular held viewpoint. The held perspective on the subject matter alone is enough for one to determine that something is true based on an inner belief. Belief is all about the mechanisms of the brain and its coordination to a particular situation or something until a final judgment or end is met. According to an article in Mother Jones written by Chris Mooney, it is clear that intellectual value judgments; the extent to which we agree or disagree about an idea, is strongly inclined by our brains' tendency to …show more content…
Other than focusing on accuracy of belief as the main mind goal, validation of these accumulated beliefs becomes prominent when it comes to settling for a particular judgment. Confirmation bias and disconfirmation bias represents the two vital tools that could help validate our personal beliefs however, they tend to compromise our ability to make a judgment on ideas based on advantages and disadvantages of these beliefs. This was evidenced by a study conducted by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) and The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The study showed how fast the mind tends to respond to a particular subject matter from an already held standpoint. From the research it was established that subjective viewpoints triggered people to process facts more or less quickly, thus affecting the accuracy of judgments made. The experiment was focused on a team of participants who were to make fast decisions based on the correctness of particular grammatical statements issued to them. Recordings were taken based on how each individual agreed to the statements more attention being paid to how objective or subjective an individual was with an aim to establish if subjectivity prejudiced mental processing time in the objective …show more content…
However, when study subjects disagreed with what they read, it took them longer to validate the accuracy of the statements. It was then clear that opinion statements were involuntarily processed by the brain depending on the subject’s viewpoint. According to Dr. Michael Gilead the head of the Social Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory at BGU, an individual needs to take into consideration various factors such as the advantages and disadvantages of various personal opinions in order to make an informed judgment and adjust to the new information. He further alluded that other factors such as pressure or conservative standpoints might also be considered an influence to rational
Do we control the judgments and decisions that we make every day? In the book, Blindspot, authors Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald reveal how people formulate decisions and judgments automatically based on their exposure to cultural attitudes regarding age, gender, race, ethnicity, social class, religion, disability status, and nationality. They claim a section of our brain, a“blind spot,” is responsible for storing the hidden biases that lead us to select choices and decisions in our life.
We definitely notice how quick people are to judge others by their statements and beliefs if they go against our own- but if it’s our own belief, we tend to defend it until the end. In this point, Haidt talks about the confirmation bias, which is the tendency to seek out and interpret new evidence in ways that confirm what you already think. People tend to think “there is evidence that supports my theory, therefore my theory is right.” The main point in topic number three is that people tend to be close-minded when it comes to being wrong. No one likes to be wrong, so we tend to find ways that support how we feel and what we think is right in order to justify out thoughts and feelings. Our intuitions come first, our strategic reasoning comes
Cognitive dissonance is a communication theory mostly used in the field of social psychology in providing a theoretical framework in dealing with various issues relating to psychology. The title provides us with the concept that cognitive is thinking while dissonance is the inconsistency or conflict brought about. Cognitive dissonance manifests when one holds two or more incompatible beliefs simultaneously. This theory has been used and applied in several disciplines including communication, due to its simplicity and straightforwardness. The theory is commonly applied in these dynamic fields since it replaces previous conditioning or reinforcement theories by viewing individuals as more purposeful decision makers striving to acquire a balance in their beliefs. Cognitions are chunks or bits of knowledge which can pertain to any variety of values, emotions or values. These cognations can be related to one another or they can also be completely independent from each other (Cooper, 06). For instance, one may like to eat junk food, but may also be trying to lose weight. The two cognitions are related to each other in tha...
The desire for consistency can go beyond rational thought or force a person to rationalize when things are out of line. People find comfort in knowing what to expect. When what is known and believed is challenged, people are disrupted and forced to make a decision on how to process conflicting information. To avoid the discomfort caused by cognitive dissonance, people may ignore opposing views, examine and change their views to maintain consistency with their actions or even seek reassurance (Defining Communication Theories, 2001).
Gawronski, B. (2012). Back to the Future of Dissonance Theory: Cognitive Consistency as a Core Motive. Social Cognition, 30(6), 652-668.
Further Reading Mullen, B., Atkins, J. L., Champion, D. S., Edwards, C., Hardy, D., Story, J. E., & Vanderlok, M. (1985). The false consensus effect: A meta-analysis of 115 hypothesis tests. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21, 262-283. Ross, L., Greene, D., & House, P. (1977). The false consensus phenomenon: An attributional bias in self-perception and social perception processes.
People, both consciously and subconsciously, are consistently exhibiting prejudicial behaviors throughout their daily activities. To begin to unpack this topic, it is important to understand
Our five senses –sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch help the ways in which we perceive the world around us. And while they seem to work independently at time they can effect each other and the way we comprehend something. Seeing something pretty, touching something soft, eating something cold and smelling something rotten are the sense we use to connect with the world around us and will all effect how we move forward in that situation. When you look at the top picture say the color of the word not the word itself. It is harder than it seems and takes a little practice to do it efficiently. It is because we see the spelling we were taught not the color it was written in. It is hard to process it the other way, but not impossible. Take the bottom picture for another example is this a
Critical thinking and decision-making are related in more ways than people think. This paper will define critical thinking and decision-making according to the book Whatever It Takes. It will also present a personal definition of critical thinking and decision-making from the author of this paper. The relationship between the two will be explained as well as the benefits of being a critical thinker. The author of this paper will also show how critical thinking is present in his organization and how he implements critical thinking techniques on a daily basis.
While the semester is over and the deadline has expired, I thought I would write this to express my true intended thoughts.
The second motive that explains why people conform according to Deutsch and Gerard, (1955) is based on informational social influence. According to Festinger, (1950, 1954 in Hogg & Vaughan 2007) this type of influence is associated with uncertainty. Here individuals are uncertain and lack knowledge as to how to behave in certain situations. Festinger referred to this as social comparison in which individuals are not fully confident about their beliefs, attitudes and opinions and therefore yield to majority in order to be correct. This occurs particularly under ambiguous conditions and is clearly demonstrated in Asch’s (1956 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) and Sherif’s (1936 in Hogg and Vaughan 2007) studies in which participants converged on similar answers particularly when the tasks became extremely difficult for them to be able to rely on their own judgments (in Bailey et al.
More and more it seems that people are becoming increasingly polarised in their views. Political debates, and discussion on controversial topics such as gay marriage and climate change, appear to split people into highly opposed groups. Responses to such topics are often imbued with strong emotions, and individuals on both sides of these moral arguments routinely demonize their opponents, which only sharpens the divide. In this essay, I shall discuss this real world problem, a question which cognitive science can help answer. Namely, can we make people more reasonable in their beliefs, specifically, their moral beliefs?
Rationality and good judgement are typically affected by certain ways of thinking which are often studied within the psychological community. Within the community, these different ways of effected thinking are called cognitive biases. Breaking down the overall umbrella of the term cognitive bias yields subcategories of decision-making, social and memory biases, among others. Biases such as these affect all humans in one way or another. My personal experience with cognitive biases include confirmation bias, authority bias and egocentric bias. This list is definitely not complete, as I am sure there are many more biases I experience without even realizing what is happening. That being said, the first experience I would like to present is
Humans are constantly making decisions during their daily life. According to Huffington Post, an average person makes around 35,000 decisions per day. From choosing which shirt to wear to important life decisions that have long-lasting effects, the decision-making process is very complex. There are mainly two types of decision-making methods. The first method is using intuition, which is taking a decision with one’s “gut” feeling or what it seems to be right without thinking about it logically. The second way of taking a decision is through reason, which carefully analyzing all the data and using logic to conclude to a decision, which is the go-to method when taking important lifelong decisions. Different areas of the brain are responsible
...ividuals understand how their minds process auditory and visual information and potential biases that contributes to certain kinds of behaviors. As individuals become increasingly aware of their biases, they begin to question and examine them through rational decision making process in order to alter or improve their behaviors by making better decisions.