Click here to listen to this post as a PODCAST [13:34]
This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may earn an affiliate commission.
The more I learn about psychology--the science of the mind, emotion, and behaviour--the more I'm disappointed in human beings as a species, due to the crazy amount of cognitive biases we have, among other issues.
But it also helps me become more at peace with people and human nature, mainly when I'm at my best, compassionate self or, conversely, when I'm at my "I really don't have time or energy for this sh*t" self.
There is one key concept that has helped me become at peace and no longer argue with people who choose to not wear masks, who choose to not believe in Covid, and who doesn't try to understand what "asymptomatic carrier" means.
For those of you who are on the right side of history, I hope this post helps you become more at peace with other irrational human's behaviours and thought processes.
That concept is called "motivated reasoning."
When you hear the term "reasoning," you may think that it is always super duper logical, and free of errors. But turns out some of our reasoning can be "motivated." Motivation is "any wish, desire, or preference that concerns the outcome of a given reasoning task" (Kunda, 1990). Basically the reasoning may not be driven by logic; it can be driven by the "motive" you want.
There are two types of motivated reasoning:
The first is where the motivation is to arrive at a conclusion that is as accurate as possible.
The second is where the motivation is to arrive at a conclusion that is directional, or leading somewhere, usually to confirm what someone already wants to think, believe, or feel.
Technically, both types of motives fall under motivated reasoning, but when the term "motivated reasoning" is evoked, it's usually associated with the latter, directional reasoning, and the problem is, it's usually riddled with biases.
When people are driven by accuracy in their reasoning, they tend to "expend more cognitive effort on issue-related reasoning, attend to relevant information more carefully, and process it more deeply, often using more complex rules." For example, they show less primacy effect, less use of ethnic stereotypes, less anchoring, and less susceptibility to the fundamental attribution error. Basically, they exhibit less cognitive biases in their reasoning.
There are sooooo many cogitive biases 😱 From teachthought
However, when people are driven by directional goals, they engage in what's called the "illusion of objectivity"; instead of actually weighing the pros and cons of all available evidence, they search their memory to pick out only examples that support their desired conclusion (similar to confirmation bias), and only cherry pick knowledge that would support their goals. The reasoning is bias because, if this same person was motivated towards a different goal, they would've picked out different memories and knowledge to justify a different conclusion on a different occasion. Note that this is all happening outside of one's conscious awareness.
Here are some evidence for motivated reasoning related to the health domain.
I'll start with a "funny" one (funny but not funny due to the negative health implications 😅). In a study with heterosexual male college students, they were asked to read descriptions of multiple female students, and evaluate the risk of getting sexually transmitted infection (STI) if they were to have unprotected sex with each of them. What varied was the number of past sexual partners each (fictitious) female student had (1, 3, or 8) and her tendency of condom use (extremely good, pretty good, or not very good). The estimates made by the male students in this study was used as a "rational" baseline for the risk of getting STI, because these two pieces of information, number of past sexual parters and frequency of condom use, are actually diagnostic information and risk factors for STIs. Then, in another study, the researchers added photographs of the female students, which varied in terms of how sexually attractive they were. The researchers wanted to see if the male students' estimates of the risk of getting STI changed from the "rational" thinking version, because now they are "motivated" to have sex with the attractive ones. They found that indeed, male students lowered their estimated risk of contracting STIs from the attractive female students, despite the information on their number of past partners and tendency of condom use, and instead, the male students used irrelevant/non-STI-diagnostic information provided (i.e., personality and interests of the females) to justify why they they thought the risk would be lower.
In another study, participants were told a fictitious story that, deficiency in a certain type of enzyme can cause serious health issues. These participants didn't know that this was fictitious. Half of the participants were then "diagnosed" to be deficient in this enzyme, and the other half were not. Both groups were then asked to rate how serious they thought this enzyme deficiency was to health and how accurate they believed the diagnostic tests were. The finding was that those who were "diagnosed" as having the deficiency rated this condition as less serious and rated the test as less accurate than those not "diagnosed" with the enzyme deficiency. So basically, those who were affected by this condition were motivated to reason in a way that biased towards a better outcome for their own health.
In a more "real world" example, researchers found that "smokers were less persuaded than nonsmokers by the Surgeon General's report about the health risks of smoking, which suggests that people threatened by scientific evidence are motivated to disbelieve it."
Motivated reasoning has also been used to explain anti-vaxxers thought processes.
To add some nuance for my sophisticated readers, motivated reasoning happens when there is psychological tension or cognitive dissonance. And this tension or dissonance occurs under the following two conditions:
There is "tension between two inconsistent beliefs" or desires. For example, the belief that "I am a healthy, intelligent person" vs "But with Covid, if I don't wear a mask, I may get sick."
This "dissonance is aroused...when one freely chooses to engage in behaviour that has foreseeable negative consequence." (i.e., choosing, with their own freewill, to not wear a mask).
So coming back to the non-mask wearer example, this is what is subconsciously going on in their head:
“I don’t wear a mask despite being told to do so by all health professionals, because it’s annoying and limits my way of life.
But wait, this is foolish behaviour, and a healthy, intelligent person like myself would not do such a thing. No way I’m a dumb, ignorant person, so the advice to wear a mask must be the thing that is wrong.
Thus, I’m going to look for reasons and evidence that supports my desire to not wear a mask.” ”
And then they would go ahead and say stuff like, "Wearing a mask doesn't protect me from Covid anyway; it's only to protects others from getting Covid from me. And I have no symptoms of Covid, so I must not have Covid, so I don't have to wear a mask.” #cueyoureyeroll 🙄
Moreover, with the current state of Covid, there are still questions about the definitiveness of certain preventative measures based on the unconfirmed, definitive nature of how it spreads. Thus, there leaves a lot of room for interpretation and cherry picking "data" and "evidence" to support one own's conclusions or motivations (i.e., to live life "normally" because it's easier to think and live that way). Motivated reasoning doesn't tend to occur in arguments such as "Do hydrogen atoms make up water?" (i.e., there is no self-related identity or lifestyle threat), or "Should you wear condoms to protect against HIV/AIDS transmission?" (because it's now "common knowledge" and it's clear how it's transmitted, and doesn't disrupt most of our lives.)
Similarly, motivated reasoning is an issue with climate change deniers. There is an article called, "The evidence for motivated reasoning in climate change preference formation", published in the journal Nature, which the most impactful peer-reviewed, scientific journal in the world, which unfortunately I don't have access to so I can't give you details on this 😅
This book cover cracks me up 😂
Get the book here.
Side note: Sadly, levels of education doesn't protect someone from motivated reasoning. In the example with climate change deniers, "the chances that a conservative is a climate science denier is [actually] significantly higher if he or she is college educated. Conservatives scoring highest on tests for cognitive sophistication or quantitative reasoning skills are most susceptible to motivated reasoning about climate science." As summarized by Dr. Adrian Bardon, who just published a book title The Truth about Denial: Bias and Self-Deception in Science, Politics, and Religion, “Science denial...isn't about facts in the first place. Science denial is an expression of identity."
To come back again to the Covid/mask thing, I first try to understand someone's level of knowledge regarding the stats on mask wearing as preventative measures for potentially transmitting or receiving Covid. If they have literally been living under a rock, and had no idea about mask and Covid for the past 9 months in North America (and even longer in Asia), then I'm happy to share what I know.
However, if it's clear that they're pretty well aware of this topic, and still chooses to not wear a mask, I no longer expend my energy in arguing with them, because more logic, more stats, more articles, etc. isn't going to change their mind.
I just let them be, I try to stay away from them as they are potentially now at a higher risk of contracting Covid in my mind, and I use my cognitive and emotional energy on something else. I also sometimes try to extend compassion. See today's actions on things I've tried doing and that you can try also.
“We’ve got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other’s only hope. ”
Today's Action
If you find that you have been exhausted and angry from arguing with people about the requirement and effectiveness of mask-wearing to prevent the spread of Covid,
you can STOP.
Stop arguing or sending them more articles now, because you won't change their mind.
Instead, you can try the following:
Rest in the recognition that they may be engaged in motivated reasoning.
Save your energy to be vigilant in not contracting Covid yourself, and perhaps to use that energy on other things like practicing gratitude that you are safe, or helping others in need (which can also lead to happiness).
Another thing you can do is, practice perspective taking. When I was living in Toronto, there was news about an anti-mask protest, and I immediately dismissed them as idiots. But then, I read this:
"When you see someone doing something that doesn't make sense to you, ask yourself what the world would have to look like to you for those actions to make sense?" (From The Great Mental Model Volume 2 by the Farnam Street).
As someone who tries to grow, I challenged myself by asking this question and tried to imagine what it would look like. What surprised me immediately was a sense of compassion; what financial, emotional, or relational stress or trauma they must be in or have been in to really only see their action to protest reality as the only way?
If you want to take it a step further, you can practice Loving-Kindness meditation, and imagining the people you argue with, and send them metta or the goodwill that they may be safe. Note that with guided meditation, you sometimes have to find the right teacher or voice that you resonate with, and I provide you with a few examples here:
I love Dr. Tara Brach's guided meditations. Her voice is super soothing. Her normal teachings (which are longer like 40mins to 1 hour) combine Buddhist stories, psychological findings, and jokes. But this is a sample of one of her guided meditations which is around 20 minutes.
Dr. Barbara Fredrickson is a leading researcher in the field of positive psychology, and I love her work on the Broaden-and Build theory of positive emotions and showing evidence how meditation affects one's vagal tone. She also has some guided meditations here. I don't like her voice as much, it's more "robotic,” but try it for yourself.
Here's another version from the Greater Good Science Centre
Let me know what strategy you're going to try!
Until next time, Transcenders!
~Pylin
P.S. If you enjoyed this blog post, please consider forwarding it to someone who may get value out of it. If you were forwarded this blog post, you can sign up to be notified of a new post every other Wednesday for free by clicking on the button below:
P.P.S. I’d love to hear from you! Let me know if you love a topic, don’t like a topic, want to hear about a certain topic. I’m all about learning from others and connecting! Email link below or pylin@drpylin.com