Does “putting on your thinking cap” reduce myside bias in evaluation of scientific evidence?
Abstract
The desire to maintain current beliefs can lead individuals to evaluate contrary evidence more critically than consistent evidence. We test whether priming individuals’ scientific reasoning skills reduces this often-observed myside bias, when people evaluate scientific evidence about which they have prior positions. We conducted three experiments in which participants read a news-style article about a study that either supported or opposed their attitudes regarding the Affordable Care Act. We manipulated whether participants completed a test posing scientific reasoning problems before or after reading the article and evaluating the evidence that it reported. Consistent with previous research, we found that participants were biased in favor of evidence consistent with their prior attitudes regarding the Affordable Care Act. Priming individuals’ scientific reasoning skills reduced myside bias only when accompanied by direct instructions to apply those skills to the task at hand. We discuss the processes contributing to biased evaluation of scientific evidence.
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All of these mechanisms, sometimes grouped under 'myside bias', can contribute to issue polarization, insofar as individuals often become more extreme in their opinions after selectively processing the evidence on specific topics such as capital punishment, immigration, healthcare policy or climate change.
“All of these mechanisms, which are sometimes grouped under the general rubric of ‘myside bias’111–113, can contribute to issue polarization, insofar as individuals often become more extreme in their opinions after selectively processing the evidence on specific topics such as capital punishment, immigration, healthcare policy or climate change114,115.”
From Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts (2022) · cites this paper as [112]
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References 36 · Cited by 35
- Authors
- Drummond, C., & Fischhoff, B.
- Affiliations
- Department of Social and Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA;
- Carnegie Mellon University (US)
- Venue
- Thinking & Reasoning
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2019-01-31
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 477-505
- ISSN
- 1354-6783 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-0708
- OpenAlex
- W2912057207
- Cited by
- 35
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 3.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Thinking & Reasoning (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Science Foundation (NCSE-1537364, SES-0949710, DGE-1252522)
- Qualtrics
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational Strategies and Epistemologies
- Social Sciences › Education › Education and Critical Thinking Development
- Keywords
- myside bias, confirmation bias, scientific reasoning skills, priming, prior attitudes, Affordable Care Act, belief maintenance, evidence evaluation
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