These psychological tendencies explain why an onslaught of facts won’t necessarily change anyone’s mind.
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Cognitive shortcuts help you efficiently move through a complicated world. But they come with an unwelcome side effect: Facts aren't necessarily enough to change your mind.
Climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.
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Whether in situations relating to scientific consensus, economic history or current political events, denialism has its roots in what psychologists call 'motivated reasoning.'
And you, do you apply the #stayhome principle that is displayed everywhere on social networks?
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Involving family and friends in decisions or rethinking the meaning of "getting back to normal" helps protect against cognitive bias and its harmful consequences.
Dougal Sutherland, Te Herenga Waka — Victoria University of Wellington
Fear is a central emotional response during a pandemic and it's why most people have complied with lockdown conditions. But as anxiety eases and boredom sets in, people's resolution may fray.
How do people respond to media coverage of weather influenced by climate change?
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Media reports are starting to directly connect climate change to its weather effects in local communities. But how you respond to those linkages depends on what you already think about climate change.
A new statistical test lets scientists figure out if two groups are similar to one another.
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Evangeline Rose, University of Maryland, Baltimore County; Kevin Omland, University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and Thomas Mathew, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
A new statistical test lets researchers search for similarities between groups. Could this help keep new important findings out of the file drawer?
When people know it’s a full moon, they tend to use it to explain all sorts of human behaviour.
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The 'illumination hypothesis' – suggests that criminals like enough light to ply their trade, but not so much as to increase their chance of apprehension.
Our predictive skills are about as reliable as a crystal ball.
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Information on social media can be misleading because of biases in three places – the brain, society and algorithms. Scholars are developing ways to identify and display the effects of these biases.
Some of the Facebook and Instagram ads used in 2016 election released by members of the U.S. House Intelligence committee.
AP Photo/Jon Elswick
Gordon Hull, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
A scholar asks whether democracy itself is at risk in a world where social media is creating deeply polarized groups of individuals who tend to believe everything they hear.
Reports of facts' death have been greatly exaggerated. Effective communication jettisons the false dilemma in favor of a more holistic view of how people take in new information on contentious topics.
And don’t expect chocolate ice cream, either.
Barney Moss
Millions of Americans believe brown cows produce chocolate milk? The way the media reported this factoid raises questions about science literacy – but different ones than you may think.
‘I don’t want to see it.’
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Quirks of human psychology can pose problems for science communicators trying to cover controversial topics. Recognizing what cognitive science knows about how we deal with new information could help.
We like to think that our political views are well reasoned and backed by evidence. But research shows how easily we all succumb to cognitive biases to justify our own deeply held views.
Like wearing psychological blinders.
Horse image via www.shutterstock.com.
It's human nature to notice or search out information that supports what you already believe and discount or avoid data to the contrary. The problem comes in when you don't recognize this bias is in play.