This has probably come up before but couldn’t think of a good way to search for it.
Whenever I see a post expressing an opinion, it always seems to be in absolutist terms that imply no other position could have any merit or that there may in fact be no good answer or solution. It doesn’t matter whether the issue is simple or complex. Keeping multiple inconsistent viewpoints in mind and giving them equal weight doesn’t seem to ever be an option.
At this point I should give an example but the problem with that is that the example then becomes the primary focus - and I’m not very good at coming up with good ones off the cuff.
This is something I’ve noticed since college and have always wondered about it. My working hypothesis is that it takes too much mental effort to consider multiple viewpoints which will, almost by definition, be inconsistent in one way or another. It’s much more efficient to “pick a side” and stick with it rather than wallow in uncertainty and indecision.
Is there any truth to this observation? If so, how do you explain this behavior?
I’ve noticed the same thing. Well, actually I haven’t. I’ve sort of noticed the same thing, or at least similar things . . . but not all the time. Or I haven’t.
There is truth to it but it does have some positive qualities. It simply takes too much work for most people to constantly reevaluate every belief they ever had and incorporate new knowledge into it. That applies to everyone. If you were brought up thinking gays are evil sinners, it takes some work to get over that. This isn’t a liberal versus conservative dilemma though. Old school environmentalists screwed their own pooch when it comes to matters of nuclear energy policy and got luck getting some of them to change that to this day.
I said there is a real benefit to more black and white thinking and there is. When it comes to leadership and actual action, you can sit there and endlessly debate every nuance of every position and end up with little or no results or you can just pick a position and run with it. The latter almost always produces more actual results because most people even within their own field have different interpretations of the evidence at hand and come at it from different angles. It tends to be hopeless for the average layperson to know what to do about global warming for instance when they hear the things scientists are still arguing about.
Everyone has a black and white outlook on most things whether they know it or not. It tends to be only the positions that they hold specialized knowledge in where they see the nuances and care enough to take those into account.
If you don’t, you tend to be accused of wishy-washyness, of waffling, of using weasel words.
And really; there’s a great many disputes in the world that really ARE that black and white, where one side is just blatantly wrong or evil. And the people who oppose it will treat it that way because it is; and the people who support it will take a hard line because they have no good arguments to support their position.
Because the more complicated something is, the more processing space it sucks down in the brain…and we like things bright, shiny and simple.
Our society has evolved-like in the last 30,000 years or so, into a way more complex thing than the original hunter-gatherer groups our brains are biologically equipped to deal with. Yeah, we’ve got a great deal of cerebral plasticity, thank goodness, but we’re still evolved to like it simple.
I learned that in last spring’s social psych class-I have forgotten why exactly, but it’s generally the whole processing thing. That, and a wild human has to be able to make a split-second decision, like :“Eat it?” “Enemy?” “Attack?” “Danger?” etc.
Complexity, shades-of-gray, nuances? not conducive to survival for hunter-gatherers.
That’s the evolutionary psychology perspective in a nutshell.
I didn’t mean to imply that people shouldn’t have opinions - or even flat out biases. But my impression (correct or not) is that adopting a particular point of view seems to interfere with one’s ability to see any other side of the argument - often to the point of tunnel vision, for lack of a better expression.
Social psych term is polarization. Opposing viewpoints actually cause you to become *more *convinced you’re right.
In groups polarization can result in groupthink;everybody starts to think alike.
The example the prof used was the Bay of Pigs invasion planning team.:smack:
Actually, I don’t get the whole modern thing though of not being able to go back and say: “You know, after a great deal of thought, I have decided I was wrong when I said_______, and I now correct myself.”
It’s like being strong enough to admit being imperfect somehow equates to weakness in some people’s minds?
No you just never met my ex-wife, my father, a female cousin, or my uncle. The best you can ever hope for out of any disagreement with them is “I am sorry that you got upset with me and I hope that doesn’t have to come to that again”. That one is a personality trait for the ages.
Well, I’m married to a woman, and have lived with my mother off and on as an adult… My wife and I settle disputes by mutual apology many times, my mom and I the same… My dad never apologized for anything…and at least in part, because of that, he and I are estranged.
So, since it’s my experience that women apologize and men don’t, I was wondering if that’s a male subcultural thing or just my individual experience?
It’s both. Women tend to notice it more often in men, while men in women.
Plus, apologizing has little to do with having an absolute position. It has to do with having enough empathy to know you’ve hurt the other person. If anything, having to apologize for being wrong seems more like something you would do if you think you always have to be right.
I do wonder how much of this is just simplification, though. I’m not going to waste my time explaining all the intricacies and exceptions when I post. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist. But if I took the time to explain them, I would only have 5 page posts all the time.
Unfortunately, it does sometimes lead to me looking like I’m contradicting myself. And I’m fully prepared to explain if someone calls me on that, but, so far, if it’s happened, I haven’t noticed (unless it was so insignificant that I forgot.)
Well, my last girlfriend wouldn’t concede a point if you held a gun to her head. My last boyfriend, on the other hand, would fold up like a card table at the first sign of disagreement. So it’s my experience that this is clearly a “girl thing.”
This is a good example of why it’s a bad idea to make generalizations about a group of three billion plus people based on a sample size of two or three individuals.
People are more likely to speak up about something they feel strongly about, so you hear more from the vocal extremes (say left or right) than from the more ambivalent middle. And once you get into the “gray” areas the discussion tends to get bogged down quickly, and that doesn’t make for snappy slogans or witty message board posts. I find that conversations between two people who are both earnestly trying to find the “Truth” somewhere in the middle tend to be boring and tiresome, whereas a civil argument between the two sides tends to get the pros and cons out there pretty quick.
I also think the act of arguing for one side tends to push you further to that side. On the debate team in high school I had to alternately argue for or against whatever topic was chosen for the year. Although they purposely chose rather boring topics that were pretty impossible to get fired up about, after a debate I would definitely feel that my side was “right,” even though I knew in my head that next week when I was on the other side I would feel the exact opposite.
I think a lot of people who post their black and white opinions are guilty of careless, sloppy thinking (thinking that the small part of something that they have encountered or understood is all there is to a thing). That, of course, is just my opinion.
Because it makes it easy to divide the world into right and wrong without having to worry about shades of grey, or the possibility that you may be wrong.
