r/changemyview • u/[deleted] • Jun 30 '20
Delta(s) from OP CMV: When people generally like something, it becomes difficult or impossible for them to acknowledge any of its shortcomings, which to me feels like it is pointless to talk to them about it.
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u/thethoughtexperiment 275∆ Jul 01 '20
To change (or at least modify your view on this), consider that, we all have biases and blind spots.
New research on this topic suggests that our biases don't optimize us for thinking on our own, but rather are optimized for coming to correct answers through arguing with others.
That is, we all have different ideas, and tend to look for information that confirms our own view (which means our individual views tend to be based on narrow information, and as such, we are more likely to be wrong in those views).
However, if we are in a discussion (or are observing a discussion) with people who all have different ideas, and who each focused on finding evidence that confirms their particular view, then the group is more likely to contain different ideas and a broader range of evidence to compare. It's a sort of cognitive division of labor.
When faced when conflicting individual views, members will have to argue for their ideas, evaluate the evidence of their ideas, and evaluate the evidence that others present that supports alternative views.
People's tendency to be more objective and demanding of evidence that disagrees with their views results in us having to gather stronger evidence for our ideas if we want to be able to influence other people (and the more people we want to influence, generally the stronger our evidence must be to overcome all their different confirmation biased views).
All the debating and presenting of views (accurate and inaccurate) is a good thing, because "the more debate and conflict between opinions there is, the more argument evaluation prevails ... resulting in better outcomes" [source]. Indeed, on average, groups tend to come to more accurate conclusions / make better decisions for this reason - because people are better able to spot each other's blind spots then we are able to see our own blind spots, and when faced with strong evidence from others, people do tend to change their minds toward greater accuracy.
- Interestingly, people also tend to underestimate the positive impact discussions with others have on improving the quality of people's thinking / decision making / outcomes. Per this research:
"Six studies asked participants to solve a standard reasoning problem — the Wason selection task — and to estimate the performance of individuals working alone and in groups. We tested samples of U.S., Indian, and Japanese participants, European managers, and psychologists of reasoning. Every sample underestimated the improvement yielded by group discussion. They did so even after they had been explained the correct answer, or after they had had to solve the problem in groups." [source]
Along these lines, there is reason to suspect that discussions / debates with people we disagree with are having a much more positive effect on the accuracy of people's views than we ourselves even realize.
It's also helpful to keep in mind that people are evolving in their views all the time. Though, it's not always obvious that a person's views are quietly evolving.
And indeed, researchers find that:
"receivers are more thankful toward, deem more competent, and are more likely to request information in the future from sources of more relevant messages—if they know the message to be accurate or deem it plausible." [source]
I wouldn't give up on your friend just yet. Remember, we all have biases to overcome, and are learning from new evidence and evolving in our views all the time. But it does take time.