Even if your answer is yes, it is useful to question ourselves once again and think about how much we can control our prejudices. Because, even if we are not aware of it, we can sometimes be a prisoner of our beliefs, and for this reason, it is not possible for us to come out of our shell.
So why is it so difficult to go beyond what we know to be true and why do we not tolerate opposing views?
When people encounter truths that simply contradict their beliefs, they are expected to adjust their views according to new evidence, but this is not the case.
Because when people face new facts, they reject that evidence instead of doubting their beliefs. Unfortunately, this situation causes unfounded beliefs to enslave us even more and thus becomes inextricable.
For example, if we start from the current election agenda; In a study on election preferences, when voters are given negative information about the candidate they support, it is seen that people defend that candidate even more strongly.
In this direction, this type of cognitive bias, in which we are quite persistent in our thoughts and beliefs, is called the backfire effect.
This effect is a kind of confirmation bias, and in its simplest form, people find information that confirms their beliefs valuable, and they have the opposite attitude towards information that does not confirm them.
This confirmation bias and rebound effect, which we are unconsciously attracted to, is actually quite suitable for the basic working principle of our mind. Because the views we have find a place for themselves in an interconnected “web of beliefs” rather than a singularity.
In fact, it is the parts of this whole that reveal our worldview in the most general sense, and it is almost impossible to try to change a person’s single belief without touching other beliefs.
For this reason, when a person encounters information that contradicts his beliefs, he has a stronger desire to support his own teaching.
We all begin to build our own world over the years in order to exist in life. For this, we observe the people around us, try to understand them, and then bring them all together. It is very important that the new information we learn later is suitable for this model that we have created ourselves.
But as most scientists have pointed out, our minds are not equipped to handle the modern world, and especially evaluating this complex or ambiguous evidence requires huge amounts of effort and energy. Our brain, of course, prefers shortcuts and saves time needed to make decisions, especially when under pressure.
For example, think of all your beliefs and teachings as a building.
It is a potential threat to your building if this building, which you have built with great effort, encounters any conflicting information. You don’t want to risk it because otherwise you will have to start construction from the beginning.
Instead, you start developing various techniques to protect your building, and all this thinking comes about as a result of problems with reasoning due to confirmation bias.
When faced with an opposing view, we do our best to follow our own. Because we do not want to build a new building, we become a door and a wall to different thoughts, even if we are not aware of it.
In fact, if we can begin to understand how this effect works, we can develop our own thinking and gain a more rational perspective.
This allows us to take a more critical approach to our beliefs and helps us to put the blinders aside, so to speak. At this point, the first step should be not to automatically reject information when we encounter information that contradicts our thoughts.
Another plus in this approach is the increase in our communication quality. When we begin to adopt this cognitive bias, we adopt a method of communication with the other person that will not cause a backlash effect.
It will not be enough on its own to say that the information and beliefs of the person in front of us are wrong. First of all, by assimilating this effect, it would be healthier to show the other party that we are not confrontational.
After this point, the communication we have established with people with opposing views begins to be somewhat healthier; we can also go on the path of questioning the teachings we stand behind and start to have a more rational thought system.
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