belief, judgement, and clear thinking

clearthinking — 2008-03-06T05:29:39Z

A number of things have been advanced in light of research findings to improve the chances of reaching good judgements and sound choices. Some are:

Alternative Framing

Generating one's own "frames" - and not just seeing the issue in terms dictated by an advocate or commentator (consciously or inadvertently) to satisfy their own opinions, prejudices, or values - tends to make it easier to resist weasel words and deceptive choices, etc., and avoid being unreasonably influenced to accept or reject a claim or conclusion on the basis of how the issue is presented. We should be mindful with such "reconceptualizing" that we don't make the mistake of substituting our own skewed or dubious picture of the issue for one offered by proponents or others!

Wishful Thinking and Putting the Cart Before the Horse

"Liking" a proposed conclusion a little too much and being eager or predisposed to accept it before closely examining the evidence and reasoning shuts the door after the horse has bolted so-to-speak! The question: "Does such a commitment to or favouring of a particular viewpoint mean I may be failing to carefully consider the matter with at least the same degree of scrutiny I exercise with claims I don't find attractive on their face?"

Legitimate Authorities?

There is really no avoiding relying on genuine expertise in weighing whether or not to believe many claims or conclusions. So, for example,

How well does the "authoritative" opinion presented seem to match the best available evidence?
Does the person have a reputation in his or her field for making dependable claims?
How much "controversy" is there in the domain about this issue?
Do the person's views reflect any convergence of independent expert opinion in the field?
Does the field apply minimum scientific standards to research and review of research results?
Have we been presented with a "controversial expert" at odds with "leading and/or well-respected professionals" in the respective field(s)?
What are the best observations available made be apparently well-informed critics and s c e p tic s, both within and outside the field, in relation to this expert's views?
Is this expert being paid (or receiving a benefit) to support the claim?
Does the person seem to have any clear motive to "take advantage"?

These are my own questions, you may well be able to think of better ones. We should be alert to clues which suggest the expert opinion proferred is suspect in any important respect supporting acceptance of the claim or conclusion.

Applying Genuine Tests to Beliefs

By latching on to the opportunity or even "engineering" our own, subjecting our beliefs to tests which really could show favoured claims to be doubtful or even false provides a pathway towards more accurate beliefs, should we view that as a commendable goal. Applying this strategy, though it may often be straightforward in "logic" or practical terms, it in all likelihood will require a good deal of sustained effort in human psychological terms, as we are risking what we usually value most: our current beliefs!

The Proper Role of Testimonials and Anecdotes

Honest, well-intentioned people may simply be wrong! Others may exaggerate or fabricate a story! Without good quality (independent) corroborating evidence testimonials often cannot prove a claim or conclusion one way or another. The picture they provide is necessarily distorted and incomplete rendering them incapable of testing a claim or providing good evidence in support of a particular conclusion. They may properly suggest the claim in question should be meaningfully tested.

Plausibility: a good "first look"

Where a claim or conclusion seems on its face to clash with or violate well-established knowledge - our background information - the onus falls even more heavily on proponents or supporters to firstly explain the apparent discrepancy and then offer excellent grounds for belief.

Multiple Working Hypotheses

Consider as many possible alternatives as practicable. A particularly effective strategy to nullify reasoning pitfalls is to routinely ask oneself why one might be wrong! This enables the reviewer to more clearly identify weaknesses in beliefs and encourages consideration of other ideas which might be better.

Predictiveness

Does the claim or conclusion contain or imply a framework or means to predict future events or outcomes? By fairly generating what these clear predicted outcomes are in advance, and then following-up to see if the results are borne out, we can overcome hindsight biases, ad+hoc excuses, and overconfidence, providing an effective way to assess the claim or conclusion.

Positive and Negative Consequences; Benefits and Costs

We should be watchful of the selective presentation of positive, attractive consequences of an idea, in tandem with the minimization or neglect of negative or harmful effects. It is important we fully evaluate the "sour" as well as the "sweet" implications of any claim or conclusion profereed for acceptance! In order to reach reasonable, ethical decisions all costs and benefits must be weighed fairly. It is easy to overestimate the probability of benefits and to underestimate the probability of harm, and to completely overlook "opportunity costs".

Minimizing Errors

The unrealistic goal of eliminating human errors - in contrast to reducing them to a minimum - has been found to often be a hindrance to improving decisions. It is unreasonable in that all human behaviour involves elements of uncertainty. Where a statistical decision formula is available, or can be readily derived, this should be preferred since it is clear from the extensive research that the alternative, clinical or intuitive decision-making, very often yields poorer decisions and seldom approaches equality with the statistical method. There will be a certain number of mistakes, but there is no way to beat the best available odds.

Dealing with such matters including the critiques - for, against, and "open" - calls for bringing to bear Critical Thinking.

Critical Thinking

The careful and reflective process of evaluating claims and argument; attempting to form or evaluate judgements through the use of relevant and reliable considerations, and not be deflected by extraneous or untrustworthy considerations.

Reasonableness, Rational Belief (Rationality)

Acceptability of a claim or conclusion if the information presented - as well as the weight of the other available evidence - tends to show the conclusion is true or at least extinquishes substantive doubts about the claim. In sum, the degree to which the available evidence provides good reason to believe the claim.

Openminded Scepticism

An unwillingness to accept at face value and a readiness to question a claim where there is (or may seem to be) currently little or no reasonable basis for acceptance combined with, critically, a willingness to revise beliefs in light of new information.

Falsifiability

Claims framed such that tests can be constructed which, if indeed the claims are false, would show the claims to be false.

Of the advantages, it's likely those seeking to cast off the "intellectual straightjacket" would:

exercise greater care with definition and framing of claims and issues;

take pains not to omit key contextual information from consideration;

appropriately qualify their statements of belief;

recognize controversies may involve more than two "all-or-nothing" sides, and that not all cases for or against possess equal or even reach a minimum level of credibility;

consistently challenge suspect claims, particularly strong and sweeping claims, at the core of the approach is informed and incisive questioning;

realize that condensing multifaceted, complex issues into a simplistic, "satisfying", and perhaps publicly-appealing position may miss the subtleties involved and misplace the difficulties requiring attention;

adopt a rigourous, cautious approach to assessing and selecting "expert opinion" sought to explain or explore a current issue or controversy;

There are no "sacred cows" in this process and this includes the critical thinker's own beliefs and anything in the public domain.

Amongst the obstacles and influences affecting the task are:

Belief bias
The interference of prior beliefs and attitudes with people’s reasoning, and what they are willing to accept as logical or illogical.

Schema

The tendency to perceive or think about people, propositions, or situations in terms of the ideas we have already formed about them.

Selective Exposure; (Attentional) Confirmation bias

The tendency to search selectively for evidence supportive of current beliefs; cognitive failure resulting in thinking about positive rather than negative information pertinent to these beliefs.

Subjective Validation

Tendency to misread unfavourable or neutral evidence as giving positive support for one's beliefs.

Manufactured Explanations

Concocting "just-so stories" for events and phenomena to support one's own beliefs.

Misplaced Consistency

Tendency to strive to maintain consistency in one's beliefs even at the expense of holding erroneous beliefs.

Framing

Variations in the presentation of a decision situation such that the consumer of "the frame" may construct markedly different representations of the situation.

Unwarranted Confidence

People seem to be unduly confident of their judgement abilities. When we cannot be sure that a belief is accurate (or very probably true), it is reasonable that our confidence in the belief be in proportion to the evidence available. Appropriate confidence is often a more realistic goal than certainty. A major advantage of accurate beliefs is that this increases the likelihood that better decisions will be made. If our confidence depends appropriately on the evidence we have, and is updated as new evidence emerges, we will take the calculated risks we ought to take, and when action requires certainty, we will withhold action if we cannot be certain. It is desirable that people should have some feeling for how likely it is they may be wrong. A key to evading unwarranted confidence appears to be close attendance to accurate feedback. (and practice!)

Expectancy

People's beliefs that certain consequences will follow certain actions. An example of a response expectancy is the Placebo Effect: a phenomenon that occurs when a person’s response to a treatment or response on the dependent variable in an experiment is due to expectations regarding the treatment rather than to the treatment itself.

Demand Characteristics

Features of a situation tending to evoke a particular desire or response.

Memory Reconstruction

The process by which in recall fragmented items in memory are put together to reconstruct (often with errors) the material originally learned. Levelling is a tendency for memories to become simplified with passage of time and for inconspicuous, insignificant, and irrelevant details (as interpreted by the rememberer) to drop out. Sharpening a tendency over time for some details of an event to become highlighted and exaggerated in memory. Confabulation refers to the generation of plausibly consistent but unreliable material or episodes to fill in gaps or uncertainties in memories, often quite unconsciously.

Contaminating Questions

The conclusions drawn from evidence can be manipulated and influenced by the way questions are phrased. Presuppositions embedded in questions play the role of suggesting that particular kinds of answers should be preferred. In the absence of a critical eye being applied to these presuppositions any answers forthcoming may be biased in ways that act as a self-fulfilling prophesy for those posing such questions.

Concreteness; Opportunity Costs

Some aspects of a decision situation are explicit and openly displayed, others more remote and must be inferred, sometimes with great effort, such as opportunity costs. Under many circumstances, people are not inclined to draw such inferences. The term opportunity cost refers to the benefit of a forgone option relative to the status quo. Under this principle, by choosing any one option, we miss what might have been gained through a different choice.

Rationalization

The tendency to defend a preferred conclusion or claim - judged acceptable or desirable - or a cherished belief via a (usually unconscious) biased analysis or distorted view of the evidence purportedly supporting the conclusion or belief.

Heuristic Persuasion

The view that, when a person cannot or does not effectively evaluate arguments put to him or her to make a case, he or she judges the case by extraneous considerations, such as the number of arguments or the expertise he or she is inclined or willing to arribute to the person presenting the arguments.

As indicated above, related to and important to these is the role and consequences of absent, misleading, and corrective feedback in forming, maintaining, challenging, or overturning one's views and beliefs about an issue, conclusion, or claim.

Glossary » »

To take this approach may not be "a walk in the park".

To close:

Ask yourself why you might be wrong;

Consider as many possible alternatives as practicable;

Ask what relevant information hasn't been given or is missing, and how might this change things;

Don't simply accept uncritically the "slant" or perspective on the issue or situation put forward by proponents and others;

Be clear about what's being claimed, and give careful thought to what the implications of this are likely to be;

Ask what evidence would show the claim is doubtful, false, or wrong;

Actively seek - and strive to take account of - corrective feedback and disconfirming evidence;

Where the evidence and/or reasoning for a claim obtrudes as weak or suspect: withhold acceptance, where it isn't yet clear whether there are substantive doubts in the case or the claim probably false: withhold rejection;

Be discriminating (in a good sense) with the evidence: often the best available evidence is not the vivid, "concrete", personal, or emotionally compelling information that tends to be so appealing to people;

→ Please note this is not in any way a summary.

Clear-thinking and Good "Luck"†!

Cheers.
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N.B. - derived from the literature

eg, Ruscio 2002, Carey 1999, Baron 2000, Yates 1990, Gilovich 1993, Zechmeister/Johnson 1992, Jones 2000, Flage 2004, etc.

»»The Internet and information»»

†It should be noted the ambition here isn't to make a plausible case that applying anything from the foregoing inoculates us from forming or subscribing to "bad beliefs" - an unrealistic hope - but rather that when we are grappling with claims, where it is important that we find out the way things really stand, we may increase our prospects of reaching accurate judgements.

It's very much the usual state-of-affairs that we (that is, everyone) are continuously generating "theories"* - naïve or otherwise - and incorporating these into our framework of beliefs about the world. We tend to interpret new information in a manner consistent with or even "flattering" our existing view of things. The question is, when it matters, whether we will allow our "love" of particular "ideological views" to take precedence over where the most reasonable evaluation of the evidence points, when the two conflict. Belief perserverance is the persistence of one's beliefs, especially deeply-held beliefs, despite credible and compelling evidence to the contrary.

A useful "poser" is to ask whether there are any circumstances you could conceive of which would render your belief wrong or worthless? If so, what exactly are these circumstances? If it emerges from this critical self-examination that in practice nothing could dissuade you from a given belief, examining the evidence becomes irrelevant and useless since the belief is a religious-type belief (non-falsifiable) depending on faith rather than evidence for it's survival: and so none of the considerations (briefly) outlined above has any bearing.

* about human behaviour, explanations for claims, and so forth...

Expert Opinion

Some tongue-in-cheek suggestions

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belief, judgement, and clear thinking