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Study finds people are consistently and confidently wrong about those with opposing views:
Despite being highly confident that they can understand the minds of people with opposing viewpoints, the assumptions humans make about others are often wrong, according to new research from the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London, in partnership with the University of Oxford.
"Poorer representation of minds underpins less accurate mental state inference for out-groups" was published in Scientific Reports. The research explores the psychology behind why people come to the wrong conclusions about others, and suggests how society could start to change that.
In all, 256 participants were recruited from the U.S. and split evenly between those with left- and right-leaning political views. They were presented with various political statements (e.g. Immigrants are beneficial to society) and asked to rate on a 5-point scale how much they agreed with it (i.e. strongly agree to strongly disagree).
For each statement, the participant would then be presented with someone else's response to the same statement. If the two shared a similar opinion, they were deemed "in-group" to one another. If the two held different opinions, they were deemed "out-group" to each other.
The participant was then asked to predict the other person's response on a second statement (e.g. all women should have access to legal abortion), and to state their confidence in their answer, from "Not at all' to "Extremely."
Participants could then choose to receive up to five more of the other person's responses to different statements to help the participant build up a better idea—or "representation"—of the other person's mind. After receiving any further information, participants could update their initial prediction and reclarify their confidence on their final answer.
Analysis of the data found that, even though participants were prepared to seek out as much—and often more—information about someone they disagreed with, their predictions were consistently incorrect, even after receiving further information about them.
Participants demonstrated a high degree of confidence in their answers, suggesting that participants thought they had a good understanding of the people in their out-group, despite this not being the case. In comparison, participants could consistently make accurate predictions about those in their in-group with less information.
"Our study shows that people have a good understanding of people who are similar to themselves and their confidence in their understanding is well-placed. However, our understanding of people with different views to our own is demonstrably poor. The more confident we are that we can understand them, the more likely it is that we are wrong. People have poor awareness of their inability to understand people that differ from themselves," says Dr. Bryony Payne.
[...] Dr. Caroline Catmur, Reader in Cognitive Psychology at King's IoPPN and the study's senior author, said, "We live in an increasingly polarized society and many people are very confident in their understanding of those who don't share their beliefs. However, our research shows that people are willing to reconsider once they are made aware of their mistakes.
"While there is no quick fix in a real-world setting, if everyone interacted with a more diverse group of people, talked directly to them and got to know them, it's likely we would understand each other better. Conversations with people who hold different beliefs could help challenge our incorrect assumptions about each other."
Journal Reference:
Payne, Bryony, Bird, Geoffrey, Catmur, Caroline. Poorer representation of minds underpins less accurate mental state inference for out-groups [open], Scientific Reports (DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-67311-3)
(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday September 05 2024, @11:27PM (4 children)
Yes a problem. No, not a paradox. This is instead expected and mundane.
Even though expected and mundane, I think the field is filled with landmines. Determining that certain belief systems aren't quite understanding of others could torpedo research funding. Academic world is full of this stuff. One doesn't simply do such a study in Mordor. There is evil there with large chips on its collective shoulders. Some subtlety/finesse/not-telling-them-what-you're-actually-doing would be required.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Mykl on Friday September 06 2024, @12:54AM (3 children)
Let's work through an example.
Scenario 1: Let's say the first question is favourite fruit. Fred selects Apple and Barney also selects Apple. Fred has a high level of accuracy in being able to guess that Barney's favourite ice cream flavour is Vanilla, like him, because the two people are similar to each other and therefore have many shared (or easily guessed) preferences.
Scenario 2: Fred's favourite fruit is Apple and Wilma's is Pear. Fred is poor at guessing that Wilma's favourite ice cream flavour is Mint. Because he doesn't understand Pear lovers, he doesn't realise that some like Mint and some like Chocolate because their preferences are not uniform and can't be guessed easily by Apple lovers.
Scenario 3: Wilma's and Betty both pick Pear as their favourite fruit. Per Scenario 1, Wilma should be able to guess Betty's favourite ice cream flavour because they are both Pear lovers. But per Scenario 2, she should not be able to guess Betty's favourite ice cream because Pear lovers are not uniform. Both can't be true at the same time.
In the real world, I agree that people are nuanced (though less so these days in the US with people increasingly treating political parties like sports teams - to be supported regardless of their policies or 'players'). The scenario presented in the experiment though does not make sense.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 06 2024, @01:41AM (2 children)
Scenario 2: Fred's favorite fruit is Apple and Wilma's is Pear. Fred is poor at guessing that Wilma's favorite ice cream flavor is Mint. He is poor at that because he simply can't grok that pear lovers could possibly love Mint ice cream.
Scenario 3: Wilma's and Betty both pick Pear as their favorite fruit. Per Scenario 1, Wilma should be able to guess Betty's favorite ice cream flavor because they are both Pear lovers. And well, Betty's favorite ice cream happens to be Mint too. How about that?
One of the effects of ideological polarization is that people build up false stereotypes of ideological opponents and frequently are unable to understand how other beliefs can manifest or the common ground they often have with even the most extreme opposition.
(Score: 2) by Mykl on Friday September 06 2024, @03:31AM (1 child)
I agree that the scenario you laid out makes sense, and it may well be that this is what the experiment showed too.
What I am struggling with is that, once Fred is told that Pear lovers prefer Mint ice cream, surely he would be able to adjust his mental model and accurately predict that in the future? The summary seems to suggest that's not the case? If it _is_ the case, then surely the issue is a temporary one at best? Or are we saying that people are refusing to adjust mental models even when presented with concrete examples that show their assumptions are wrong?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday September 06 2024, @11:57AM
Just like when a moon hoaxer changes their mind when they're given copious evidence and solid argument that the Apollo Program actually put people on the Moon? We know that it can be hard to change peoples' mental models even when they want to change them.
Do you even have to ask?