<How do we handle new information? Our openness. 〉Not Born Yesterday (4)

How do we handle new information? Our openness.

Hello, Hello everyone, I'm the main puller P

Last time we talked about the theory of open alertness.

Hugo said that we are not gullible or very alert, but simultaneously open and alert at the same time.

Is the omnivore of information.

And we'll tell you in two episodes.

So, how are we open and how are we alert?

First, let's talk about how we deal with new information.

There is a concept called credibility verification.

Press... It sounds unpopular, but it's actually something everyone knows.

We first compare the newly received information with what we have in our minds.

If it fits, accept it and strengthen your original idea.

Shouldn't this be new knowledge?

Credibility verification is a very common concept.

However, the question is, what if you encounter something contrary to your own thoughts?

The mainstream saying is that people are only willing to accept what they already believe, and it is difficult to accept what is counter-intuitive.

There is a story that is mentioned more or less in all the books about misconceptions.

That is, years ago, the second Iraq war.

President Bush Jr. of the United States cited Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction as an excuse.

Invade Iraq.

Although there was simply no direct evidence of this at the time.

And now that we know the truth, there are still people who believe it.

American political scientists Brendan Nairn and Jason Leffler did an experiment.

He gave to the conservative people of America, especially those who supported sending troops in the first place.

Looking at those authoritative reports, there are no five cases of mass destruction in Iraq.

However, those participants, not only did not change their minds, but even more believe that yes, Iraq must have!

Everyone is hiding! The US government is also hiding!

It's like vaccines cause autism, the earth is flat, and the moon landing video was made by Cook!

This effect is called the backfire effect.

Talk about people who, when they receive messages that are counterintuitive to their own, will be more convinced of their own ideas.

So we say that human beings are stupid and irrational!

but! This means that we have also fallen into another misunderstanding of thinking.

Does the backfire effect exist? exist!

But is he the norm or a special event?

It is important that we separate general laws from special cases.

The backfire effect often exists when the person has strong political ideology,

And you just said an idea that is contrary to his political philosophy, and then there will be a backfire.

However, most of the messages that appear every day have nothing to do with political ideas!

If you thought that the length of the Nile River was 7,000 kilometers, at this time, someone said, I remember it was 5,000.

Will you change your mind?

If the backfire effect were the norm, you might end up thinking that the Nile could circle the Earth several times!

And experiments, and your own thinking, show that of course not.

Most people change their minds.

I think it is 7000. You remember it is 5000. Well, I will change it to 6000 kilometers.

And even in terms of political ideology, the newer experiment pointed to a backfire effect in only one of the 30 subjects.

The backfire effect is not a general rule.

So what is the general rule?

Reasoning is the rule

Little P, let me tell you an interesting puzzle.

Suppose there are three people now. methyl ethyl propylene

A looks at B, B looks at C, and C looks at A.

Now, we know that A is married and C is unmarried.

Is there a married person looking at an unmarried person now?

A has

B no

C cannot be judged.

What is the answer?

You can pause and think slowly, that's okay.

OK, then I'll post the answer.

The answer is A has.

Because if B is unmarried.

When A looks at B, he is married and looks unmarried.

If B is married.

B looks at C, and he is married and looks unmarried.

Did you get it right?

If your answer is wrong, then you are right~

I gave you an answer that didn't fit your intuition, but I was able to convince you that I was right.

Why?

Because this answer is logical and reasonable.

And you are also logical and reasonable, so you can accept it.

As long as you are reasonable and I am reasonable, then as long as I resort to logic, I can convince you.

Most people are reasonable.

If it is unreasonable, then the media, or our education system, will not be able to implement it at all.

It is because we are reasonable that we can accept new things, whether that thing is truly true or not.

Why do people believe those conspiracy theories and rumors and those obviously wrong perceptions, such as vaccines causing autism? Their logic is unreasonable! And usually those who believe it ignore better explanations altogether.

This, we will talk about it later.

But let me spoil things first.

Sometimes, it's because these things fit their intuition too much,

Like vaccines, vaccines can easily be explained by people who inject the virus into the body to produce antibodies.

Inject the virus into the body? ! This kind of thing sounds too scary, and people feel very intuitive that it is harmful.

Or, creationism and evolution.

People can design and make things. Isn't it too counterintuitive that there is a God who designed everything, including humans?

Rather, adaptation is something that happens because natural selection is out of control. This sentence, to be honest, is hard to convince people.

But that's not to say people are gullible.

Rather, humans can be persuaded by reason, but they just happen to be persuaded by the wrong reason.

Or should we say more.

The reason why vaccines and evolution are accepted by most people is the evidence that makes sense.

And there is another possibility that people believe this because it is beneficial to them to do so.

Well, Guanzi will sell it here first.

We move on to open questions.

The above conclusion is that.

People are reasonable.

When we receive new information, we first look to see if it matches our intuition.

If it doesn't match, we'll see if he can reason, and if so, we'll fine-tune or even change our existing thinking.

The backfire effect is a special event, not a general rule.

The problem comes again.

At this moment, scientists have already proved that space can be distorted, and black holes are real.

And I think most people believe that these laws of physics are true.

However, we ourselves did not reason about this information!

This information has nothing to do with our intuition, and we have not reasoned, so how do we believe it?

Because we trust scientists.

We know, and sometimes other people know more than we do.

How do we judge who is trustworthy?

Hugo summed up three rules.

First, listen to people who know more.

Suppose you took a long vacation and didn't go to work for several days.

At this time, your colleague calls you to say that your supervisor is married!

would you believe it?

As long as you judge that he has no reason to lie to you, you will believe him.

Because he sees your supervisor every day, he sees what you don't.

Even a three-year-old can understand this.

Psychologist Elizabeth Robinson did an experiment and asked several adults to tell the children, what's in the box?

And these adults, some opened the box in front of the children to see, some did not.

Experiments have shown that children are more likely to believe those adults who have actually opened the box and seen it.

We trust scientists because they have seen what we have not seen.

And, they are capable.

The second rule is that we trust competent people, aka experts.

But instead of expert bias as we said earlier, we don't imitate a person's walking just because he's a good hunter. Unless, that is related.

If a friend of yours is very good at solving computer problems, the next time you encounter a computer problem, you will still find him.

But if you're having a relationship problem, you won't necessarily ask him.

Moreover, we are also very good at judging who is really capable.

Yes, success in some fields is indeed a lot of luck, and in that field, there will always be times when the judgment is wrong.

But in most places.

A man who can hunt is a man of ability.

The third rule is

Listen to the majority.

Although sometimes the truth always sleeps with the few. Although sometimes, most are wrong!

But in most cases, the majority is still more likely to be right than the individual.

You may have heard your mother say that.

Your friends are doing this, so you should do it?

If your friends all jumped off the bridge, would you jump?

At this point you can object.

will you?

Think about which situation is more likely to happen.

All my friends are crazy.

Or was there an accident on the bridge, or even a fire?

Do you think it would be better if you didn't jump when the bridge caught fire and everyone jumped off the bridge?

Then you'll be hit with a +9 clothes hanger.

In short, in most cases, it is indeed easier for the majority to be correct.

Trusting most people is a rational choice.

But we are not just blindly following the majority.

Let's go back to those conformist experiments.

God, I don't know how many times I've talked about these experiments.

I hope this can make you feel that an idea, an experiment, viewed from various angles, will lead to completely different conclusions.

In the line segment experiment, if you don't know, you can listen to the chapter of conformity in "Behavior",

The subjects were driven by group pressure because everyone said the wrong answer, believing that two distinct lines were the same length.

This is the classic experiment of conformity.

However, we cannot say that group pressure makes people stupid.

Because, some follow-up experiments have shown that people don't follow the group if they answer anonymously.

And, actually visit the words of those who conform.

They will explain it with various reasons.

Maybe those lines are delusional?

Maybe you are wrong?

Or, is the question actually about width, not length?

People don't believe in things that contradict their perceptions because of this, and the group pressure is not so great that people really believe it.

Well, today's content, in summary.

People are rational, and it is also rational to follow experts and most people.

Do you agree with what Hugo said?

I'll put my thoughts on that later.

Because, we haven't finished explaining Hugo's idea.

We're done talking about opening and how we're going to receive new information.

Next, let's talk about alertness.

How we detect lies.

But, that's for the next episode.

If you like my show, don't forget to subscribe and share my show with five stars.

See you next episode.

goodbye

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