Developing individual in society Lecture 7 + 8: 08/03/2021 Socially motivated reasoning Lecturer: Dr. Nathan Heflick Naïve realism - Idea people see themselves as objective and rational. - They believe they see the world and others 'as it is'. - People who disagree with your view of the world will tend to be seen as some combination of lazy, uninformed, lacking intelligence or ruled by self-interest. Evidence for Naïve realism: A bias blind spot - Hindsight bias : Tendency to exaggerate the extent you knew it all along. - Fundamental attribution error : Tendency to underestimate role of the situation when evaluating others behaviour. - Halo effect : Tendency to exaggerate how much a person has good traits if you know they have one positive trait. People believed these biases were less applicable to themselves, but still applicable to others. Bias is acknowledged but deny its existence as much within themselves. (Pronin et al., 2002) 8 7 - D Average American Self 6 Perceived susceptibility 5 4 3 Self- serving Self- interest Reactive devaluation FAE Halo effect Hostile media Biased assimilation Cognitive dissonance Pronin et al (2007) - Studies show people think they are less susceptible to conformity than others. Pronin et al (2010) - People think they have more free will than others. These effects persist even though they are somewhat reduced when people are taught about them. (Heflick, UR).
Examples - Equality hypocrisy : People state equality is very important, but a few questions later they will give responses which show they value some groups over others. - People then report that they did not give inconsistent answers, they would know if they did, and that others would be much more likely to give inconsistent answers. Further evidence: - Lord, Ross, Lepper (1979) - Gave pps who were either pro or anti-death penalty. - Information given to pps was the same, with only numbers swapped to support one side or other. Methodology that led to findings was the same. - Pps tended to believe the research when it matched their moral position, but not when it opposed it. - They rated the research as more credible despite the design being the same across all conditions. Westen et al., (2006) had pps view statements that were either positive or negative about various politicians. When reading a positive statement about a political figure they disliked, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) activated. The ACC is an error monitoring area. Mirror Image effect : Both sides of any war/major conflict see the other side as evil and biased. They see their own side as morally just and unbiased. False consensus effect : The idea that people tend to overestimate the extent to which people share their ideas, values and preferences. Even when given evidence people will still overestimate the extent to which people share their views. Motivated Reasoning Kunda (1990) reviewed all research to date on reasoning. Kunda concluded that reasoning is largely motivated by reaching the desired conclusion. However, this tendency