Are You Passionate When You Are Wrong?
Robin Hanson, at Overcoming Bias, made this observation several days ago.
"Reading through the comments lately a correlation stands out: those who are dead wrong are on average more passionate than those who are more nearly right. This correlation seems an obvious explanation for the usual boring academic demeanor; those of us who want to be thought right must try not to seem too passionate. But though I accept this sad fate for now, my curiosity (passionately?) cries out: why?! Why are the wrong more passionate?"
To gain some insight into this, imagine that you are in the following experiment, conducted at a University.
In this experiment, you are given a bitter drink, 1/2 koolaid and 1/2 vinegar. It tastes awful, but the experimenter seems unaware because he asks [tells] you to write a short sentence describing the drink as "delicious".
Most in the experiment comply.
To finish the experiment, you fill out a questionnaire in which you can reveal your true feelings to the vile brew.
Now, the group that were told to write the sentence "the drink was delicious" said in questionnaire that the drink was actually bitter - they were truthful.
But, many in group that were given a choice whether to describe the drink as delicious, said in the questionnaire that the bitter drink was actually pretty tasty!
[We don't know whether any people in the latter group actually sought out koolaid/vinegar drinks.]
This is a real experiment, described in more detail by Eddie Harmon-Jones, in the book Cognitive Dissonance.
Given the choice to adopt a statement inconsistent with facts lead many people to an unwarranted revision of the facts.
But not only can the bitter become sweet, the strength of a belief or, passion for defending it, can increase.
As described by Eddie Harmon-Jones, "girls attending a church youth program were asked to declare publicly whether they believed in the divinity of Jesus. ... The girls were presented with a belief disconfirming information about Jesus ... [The girls] that accepted the truthfulness of the disconfirming information intensified their belief in Jesus' divinity."
Cialdini, in Influence, the Psychology of Persuasion, described social proof this way "The greater the number of people who find any idea correct, the more the idea will be correct."
So next time you run into that passionate person pitching a stupid idea, just remember that he or she doesn't actually believe it - unless of course you do.
