… many questionable and erroneous beliefs have purely cognitive origins, and can be traced to imperfections in our capacities to process information and draw conclusions. We hold many dubious beliefs, in other words, not because they satisfy some important psychological need, but because they seem to be the most sensible conclusions consistent with the available evidence. People hold such beliefs because they seem, in the words of Robert Merton, to be the “irresistible products of their own experience.” They are the products, not of irrationality, but of flawed rationality.
How We Know What Isn’t So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life
by Thomas Gilovich
人間この信じやすきもの―迷信・誤信はどうして生まれるか
by トーマス ギロビッチ
認知科学選書
When examining evidence relevant to a given belief, people are inclined to see what they expect to see, and conclude what they expect to conclude. Information that is consistent with our pre-existing beliefs is often accepted at face value, whereas evidence that contradicts them is critically scrutinized and discounted. Our beliefs may thus be less responsive than they should to the implications of new information.
People will always prefer black-and-white over shades of grey, and so there will always be the temptation to hold overly-simplified beliefs and to hold them with excessive confidence.
What we believe is heavily influenced by what we think others believe.
We humans seem to be extremely good at generating ideas, theories, and explanations that have the ring of plausibility. We may be relatively deficient, however, in evaluating and testing our ideas once they are formed.
For desired conclusions, we ask ourselves, “Can I believe this?”, but for unpalatable conclusions we ask, “Must I believe this?”