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Some applied behavioral science for your Saturday morning. (First thread...Hope this works.) One thing I do to fight #twitterbubble culture: If I get annoyed by someone's political posts, I am MUCH likelier to un-follow if I disagree rather than agree with that person THREAD 1/14
This is rooted in cognitive psychology research on confirmation bias. Lots of studies have found that people are prone to believe what they want to believe – that's CONFIRMATION BIAS – we use *new* information to *confirm* what we already believe. 2/14
How does this work? There are several mechanisms – we SEARCH for information that fits our views; we have better MEMORY for information that fits our views. 3/14
That's not the battle I'm fighting here. What I'm fighting is a third mechanism – we apply SCRUTINY to new evidence in ways that confirms what we already believe. 4/14
Let's say (hypothetically) you don't like the President. The SEARCH and MEMORY mechanisms say that you'll choose to watch news sources that also dislike the President and you'll remember information about bad things he did. What the SCRUTINY mechanism does is more subtle. 5/14
It says that you'll apply a much higher standard of evidence to information that contradicts your view rather than supporting it. 6/14
The President made a spelling error on Twitter? What a fool! (Low scrutiny; no search for alt explanations) The President signed an executive order you agree with? He just did it for the votes; he doesn't believe in it. (High scrutiny; lots of search for alt explanations) 7/14
This is really hard to notice that you're doing. You can kinda tell when you're in a bubble, but what you can't tell so well is whether you're taking arguments seriously. If you don't like the President, there's probably a reason for that, so it's not crazy to apply 8/14
higher scrutiny to arguments saying that he's great. There could very well be an alternative explanation! And yes, there is corroborating evidence that he may very well be a fool. (This is not a partisan comment; politics is filled with fools.) 9/14
But this is tricky because there are also millions of people who believe exactly the opposite of what you do. Dialogue is impossible if we don't have remotely similar standards of evidence. 10/14
I'm highly imperfect at this, but I try to take all arguments seriously. And a first step is by trying to correct this bias. In full disclosure, I don't think there's actually good evidence this works (de-biasing is hard and can backfire), but I think it's worth trying. 11/14
So I try to take arguments especially seriously from people I disagree with often. Yes, that includes people who support the President, and also people like hard-left socialists who I disagree with just as much. But many of these people are smart and worth taking seriously. 12/14
So try to SEARCH out some people you disagree with and actually try to learn from what they say. Of course you can scrutinize their arguments and you don't have to agree. If you're so right, what are you afraid of? 13/14
And that brings me to the people I do agree with, but who post things on Twitter that drive me nuts. The obnoxious, the repetitive, the over-the-top drama. I just unfollow them. No loss except my time and headspace. 14/END
(Inspired by un-following a super-annoying person I often agree with.) I feel @PsychRabble (who is not annoying at all whether I agree or not!) might like this thread?
