- Aug 2022
-
psyarxiv.com psyarxiv.com
-
Šrol, J., Cavojova, V., & Mikušková, E. B. (2021). Social consequences of COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs: Evidence from two studies in Slovakia. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/y4svc
-
- Sep 2021
-
www.nytimes.com www.nytimes.com
-
One last resource for augmenting our minds can be found in other people’s minds. We are fundamentally social creatures, oriented toward thinking with others. Problems arise when we do our thinking alone — for example, the well-documented phenomenon of confirmation bias, which leads us to preferentially attend to information that supports the beliefs we already hold. According to the argumentative theory of reasoning, advanced by the cognitive scientists Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber, this bias is accentuated when we reason in solitude. Humans’ evolved faculty for reasoning is not aimed at arriving at objective truth, Mercier and Sperber point out; it is aimed at defending our arguments and scrutinizing others’. It makes sense, they write, “for a cognitive mechanism aimed at justifying oneself and convincing others to be biased and lazy. The failures of the solitary reasoner follow from the use of reason in an ‘abnormal’ context’” — that is, a nonsocial one. Vigorous debates, engaged with an open mind, are the solution. “When people who disagree but have a common interest in finding the truth or the solution to a problem exchange arguments with each other, the best idea tends to win,” they write, citing evidence from studies of students, forecasters and jury members.
Thinking in solitary can increase one's susceptibility to confirmation bias. Thinking in groups can mitigate this.
How might keeping one's notes in public potentially help fight against these cognitive biases?
Is having a "conversation in the margins" with an author using annotation tools like Hypothes.is a way to help mitigate this sort of cognitive bias?
At the far end of the spectrum how do we prevent this social thinking from becoming groupthink, or the practice of thinking or making decisions as a group in a way that discourages creativity or individual responsibility?
-
- Jul 2021
-
-
Bressan, P. (2021). Strangers look sicker (with implications in times of COVID-19). PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/x4unv
Tags
- heuristic
- facial resemblance
- prejudice
- infectious disease
- emotion
- cognitive psychology
- life science
- framing
- cross-cultural psychology
- emotion regulation
- psychological adaptation
- behavioural immune system
- ingroup
- is:preprint
- behavioural science
- lang:en
- COVID-19
- bias
- outgroup
- pathogen avoidance
- survival
- cultural psychology
- family
- social science
Annotators
URL
-
- Feb 2021
-
psyarxiv.com psyarxiv.com
-
Cruwys, T., Stevens, M., Donaldson, J. L., Cardenas, D., Platow, M. J., Reynolds, K. J., & Fong, P. (2021). Perceived COVID-19 risk is attenuated by ingroup trust: Evidence from three empirical studies. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/94sd3
-
-
psyarxiv.com psyarxiv.com
-
Kramer, P., & Bressan, P. (2021). Infection threat shapes our social instincts. PsyArXiv. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/pbf4d
-
- Aug 2020
-
psyarxiv.com psyarxiv.com
-
Harper, Craig A., and Darren Rhodes. ‘Ideological Responses to the Breaking of COVID-19 Social Distancing Recommendations’, 19 August 2020. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkqj6.
-
Harper, Craig A., and Darren Rhodes. ‘Ideological Responses to the Breaking of COVID-19 Social Distancing Recommendations’, 19 August 2020. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkqj6.
-
Harper, Craig A., and Darren Rhodes. ‘Ideological Responses to the Breaking of COVID-19 Social Distancing Recommendations’, 19 August 2020. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/dkqj6.
Tags
- polariation
- recommendations
- public health
- socialize
- ideological responses
- ideology
- breaking rules
- outgroup flouting
- ingroup flouting
- COVID-19
- ignored public health guidance
- conservatives
- behaviour
- Western democracies
- condemn
- social distancing
- ignored
- is:preprint
- lang:en
- judgements
- ideological symmetries
- liberals
Annotators
URL
-