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Belief perserverance The persistence of one's beliefs, especially deeply-held beliefs, despite credible and compelling evidence to the contrary. People's beliefs are remarkably resilient in the face of empirical challenges which should be devastating. There are two facets to this effect, firstly, the strengthening of belief in the face of fresh evidence of such character and quality that moderation of belief would be the most warranted response. Secondly, the survival of belief in the face of evidential discrediting, that is, the exposure of fatal flaws or inadequacies in the evidence† which originally led to the formation of the belief.
Two strategies for moderating this bias concern becoming more aware of our own cognitive processes: we should remind ourselves to think carefully about how we evaluate evidence regarding claims we distinctly favour (or oppose) such that we make conscious efforts against exaggerating evidence which appears to bear out our viewpoint – positive or negative – while taking pains to guard against any tendency to unjustifiably discount evidence seeming to support alternative conclusions or hypotheses. Secondly, we should actively counter-argue our current beliefs, especially when there is controversy about the issue(s), which involves asking oneself in what ways one’s beliefs might be wrong. To do this a technique which can be useful is to consider the opposite – giving conscientious consideration to credible alternative views (and thinking of one’s preferred view as truly in doubt). When people are asked to seriously take on the idea that the opposite of their beliefs might be true, research findings show they are less likely to succumb to belief perserverance.
As implied above, one very pernicious consequence of this phenomenon is that once a belief is incorporated into our framework of beliefs it will usually require more compelling evidence to change it – and especially to reject or overturn it – than it did to have the belief accepted in the first place. When confronted with a discrepancy between belief and facts, we should strive to resist any inclination to unthinkingly assume that our beliefs are right and the facts somehow ‘wrong’. (This doesn’t mean that we should be unquestioning about information presented to us.)
Unfortunately, the more invested we feel in our beliefs, the greater will be our tendency to protect them – so when these beliefs are challenged, if we don’t make assiduous efforts to prevent it, we risk becoming even more immersed in beliefs which may be mistaken.
†(or the way in which this evidence was previously interpreted to justify the belief).
(see also: myside bias, belief bias, Confirmation bias, cognitive bias, Selective exposure, Neutral-evidence principle, Subjective Validation, Forer (Barnum) effect, wishful thinking) Back to: Glossary A-C, Glossary D-H, Glossary I-P, Glossary Q-S, Glossary T-Z
Glossary of selected Judgement & Decision-making, Belief-related, and other Psychology terms A-Z » Labels:
Belief perserverance, definition: ‘Belief perserverance’, belief persistence, persistence or strengthening of beliefs in the face of disconfirming evidence |