Oops! I read the comments!

On confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and cognitive dissonance

Photo by Luis Cortés on Unsplash

Okay. Look. I know you should never read the comments section. But I did it. I confess. I read the comments on an opinion piece I published in November about how political tribe causes us to rationalize away facts to conform to our beliefs. I mean the comments are hard to resist, right? At least for me.

Now, normally, nothing good comes from reading the comments. But this time, comment after comment proved the point I was making in the piece. We humans are just not very good at updating our beliefs in the face of new information, even after reading an article about how and why were are not very good at updating our beliefs in the face of new information. When the facts and our beliefs come into conflict, the facts usually lose out.