A Mind of its Own

We can't help it. We are pre-programmed to make inferences and draw conclusions from what we see.

Studies on babies that were videoed and later reviewed showed that even little ones make inferences. In one experiment, these young ones were shown videos of what appeared to be a pole moving back and forth with a board across the middle, hiding the center section. It could have been one pole, or it could have been two separate pieces of wood moving synchronously.

Most adults would assume that the video was of one pole moving with its center hidden. The babies did the same.  

The babies were shown the video of the moving poles with the center obscured over and over until they demonstrated clear signs of boredom. Then the video was shown again, but this time with the board removed. Some babies were shown a video of one pole moving back and forth. Others were shown a video where there was a gap behind where the board had been, and that there were actually two poles moving back and forth at the same time.

The lack of surprise in the babies who were shown the video of one pole, contrasted with the obvious surprise shown in the faces of the babies who saw the two poles, led the researchers to conclude that the babies did, indeed, infer what was behind the obscuring board. They clearly expected to see just one pole. (Pure Reasoning in 12-Month-Old Infants as Probabilistic Inference, Erno Téglás, 2011)

Other experiments have been done that illustrate babies' inherent expectations of connections and their surprise when those connections were shown to be false. We start forming relationships and inferences about our surroundings very early in life.

Is it any wonder that we sometimes draw incorrect conclusions?

Clinging Tightly

Closely related to loss aversion is the endowment effect, where we highly value things we possess. In loss aversion, we cling to what we have, not wanting to part with it. With the endowment effect, things we possess gain value merely by virtue of possession. This also can be applied to belief.

Daniel Kahneman repeated Richard Thaler's classic experiment with coffee cups many times, always with the same results. It is a simple demonstration of the endowment effect.

"Mugs were distributed randomly to half the participants. The Sellers had their mug in front of them, and the Buyers were invited to look at their neighbor's mug; all indicated the price at which they would trade. The Buyers had to use their own money to acquire a mug. The results were dramatic: the average selling price [determined by the one possessing the mug] was about double the average buying price [the price a buyer deemed he would be willing to pay for that mug], and the estimated number of trades was less than half of the number predicted by standard theory."

More than a coffee mug, beliefs are things that we cling to. We don't want to part with them; it is like they are a part of us and who we are. We gave up our former lives and our families for those beliefs. They cost us a lot. We value more highly things that require more effort to attain.

COG members were required to "witness," i.e. try to convince others of the value of our beliefs. Like the techniques used in multi-level marketing, the more we worked to "sell" our religion to others, the more we treasured it ourselves.

What of disconfirming evidence? 

"It is extremely rare for someone to simply abandon a valued belief when confronted with disconfirming information. In fact, recent psychological research shows that when this happens, people tend to hold the erroneous belief even more strongly." Daniel Kahneman

Your Deceptive Mind: A Scientific Guide to Critical Thinking Skills