The Selective Laziness of Reasoning

Trouche et al. (2016) found that subjects are less critical of their own arguments than of other people's.

“This suggests that subjects are less critical of their own arguments than of other people's, indicating that confirmation bias is real and perhaps often operative when we are considering our own claims and arguments.”

About half of Trouche et al.'s participants did not notice that they were presented with their own arguments again.

“About half of the participants didn't notice that by the experimenter's intervention, in some trials, they were in fact presented with their own arguments again; the arguments appeared to these participants as if they were someone else's.”

More than half of subjects who believed they were assessing someone else's arguments rejected those that were in fact their own, and were more likely to do so for invalid than valid ones.

“Furthermore, more than half of the subjects who believed they were assessing someone else's arguments now rejected those that were in fact their own, and were more likely to do so for invalid than for valid ones.”

If bias functions to boost one's own conviction to facilitate SFPs, then laziness in critical thinking about one's own positions shouldn't be surprising.

“But if the bias functions to boost primarily only one's own conviction about particular beliefs so as to facilitate SFPs then 'laziness' in critical thinking about one's own positions (Trouche et al. 2016) shouldn't be surprising.”