Achieving complete objectivity seems to be something inaccessible to us humans. This is the conclusion of the study led by Stefano Palminteri, from the École Normale Supérieure de Paris (France) and the University College London (United Kingdom) and collected in the journal PloS Computational Biology , which shows that prejudices they have much more weight than we imagined and are capable of blurring our reasoning and not taking into account real and concrete facts.
Previous studies suggested that factual learning, that is, learning from the results obtained, is biased, so that participants prefer to take into account positive prediction errors compared to negative ones.
The experts conducted two experiments to get to this extreme. First, they wanted to discover if prejudices are so anchored in people that we are unable to expel them from our determinations, even if these prejudices contradict reality. To do this, they had the participation of 20 people who were asked to carry out the same task – choose pairs of abstract symbols, each of them with a point value – but in a different way. Over the course of the experience, the volunteers realized that some symbols were worth more than others and began to choose the most valuable ones over others.
In the second exercise, they were informed of the values of each of the symbols, explaining that this time they could only select one. The participants chose again the same symbols that they had chosen the first time, even though they already knew that they were worth less.
Thus, the second experiment did not change the preferences of the participants, even though the symbols they did not choose could be even more valuable. This determines, according to experts, that humans have an extraordinary ability to ignore facts that do not correspond to our prejudices because we tend to choose the easiest path, even if it is not the best.
How difficult it is to change your mind
Therefore, some people will never change their mind, even with the most overwhelming evidence in front of their eyes, because new information that counteracts their beliefs is ignored.
“It is as if you do not hear the voices in your head telling you that you are wrong, even if you lose money,” says Stefano Palminteri, leader of the work.
Palminteri hopes that we can learn to be aware of our own biases or prejudices, but says that it will be difficult, because if a person believes that they are not wrong, it is difficult to change this idea. In fact, even if some people are aware that they are having biases, it is probably impossible to eliminate them entirely. “Complete objectivity is probably something that we will never fully achieve,” says Palminteri.
“In the end, people will have the impression that they are better than they really are. That could increase self-confidence, and provide a motivational boost,” says Palmintieri.
Reference: Stefano Palminteri, Germain Lefebvre, Emma J. Kilford, Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
Confirmation bias in human reinforcement learning: Evidence from counterfactual feedback processing. PLOS Computational Biology. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005684
