Are We Victims of our Own Beliefs?

Is it human nature to be a slave to one's predispositions? We are all bias. Our perspective of people and the world around us is often limited to our own experiences and the preconceived notions that we are raised by our culture to believe. We are drawn to whatever confirms these prejudices, and in layman’s terms, this “confirmation bias,” means consuming information and content that supports or confirms our pre-existing beliefs and opinions; believing what we want to believe. Among those most vulnerable are religious and political fundamentalists, their staunch views relegate any conflicting information to that of fiction, and anything agreeable to being fact; so much so that the spreading of fake news has become an epidemic—people feeling the need to share whatever content supports their opinions, regardless of its validity.

To many, the truth is subjective. People are far more interested in pushing their own agenda than understanding the perspectives of others, let alone discerning fact from fiction. Social media has only exacerbated this. For instance, the National Bureau of Economic Research estimated that the average American was shown over a dozen untruthful “news” stories during the 2016 elections, and more than 75 percent of Americans believe that “the average person lives in their own, online, bubble”. Unfortunately, people live their day to day lives with blinders on, narrowly focused on their own suppositions, rejecting whatever viewpoints question or oppose their own. This is a weakness of our cognitive functioning as human beings, one that inhibits our objectivity and delineation of the truth. Perhaps, as a complacent habit for survival, we simply seek to back up the status quo of our perceived reality. But this is something we all must contend with, not just fundamentalists; cognitive bias is a part of our human nature, a part that with humility and analytical thinking we can overcome.

Still, fundamentalists, dogmatists, and other close-minded worldviews have been suggested to be predisposed to having an incapability to critically discern information. According to research published in the Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, there is a direct correlation. Political discord, religious fanaticism, and critically charged social issues have caused the viral dissemination of propaganda and disinformation to spread across the annals of social media and other virtual spaces at concerning rates. The more firmly we hold to certain beliefs and views, the less we are able to engage in conversations about these subjects empirically and analytically. Instead, we regurgitate false information, despite being presented overwhelming evidence against it.

Study author Michael V. Bronstein of Yale University has taken an interest in understanding the nature of fake news, and why people continue to believe it. He has come to theorize that there is a shared mechanism between the belief in “fake news” and the belief in delusions, both potentially resulting in similar cognitive factors. His goal is to foster a better grasp of these predispositions, with the hopes of developing intercessions to reduce a person’s individual susceptibility; opposing the harmful effects these false beliefs have on society as a whole. To that end, experiments carried out by Bronstein and his colleagues revealed that there is, in fact, a direct correlation between the adherence of close-minded views (political and religious fundamentalism, dogmatism, delusion, etc.) and a decrease in critical, investigative, thinking.

In fact, being open-minded goes hand-in-hand with critical thinking. A person must be open to other ideas, experiences, and possibilities that may be beyond their own personal understanding, but more importantly, a person must be open to being wrong. Objectivity means being fair and impartial, aware of one’s biases, but considering the information presented in an evenhanded, conscientious manner. It means taking your pride out of the equation in order to determine the truth. Moving forward we must be more open to impartial dialogue and unprejudiced conversation, pragmatic in our consumption of news and information, and empathetic in our interactions with others; especially those with differing experiences and opposing views. We must be willing to engage one another actively and openly. Only then will we be able to manage our inherent cognitive biases and differentiate “fake news” from the real thing.