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By Root 1886 0

a strong conviction, especially if the convinced person has some investment in his belief. We are familiar with the variety of ingenious defenses with which people protect their convictions, managing to keep them unscathed through the most devastating attacks. But man’s resourcefulness goes beyond simply protecting a belief. Suppose an individual believes something with his whole heart; suppose further that he has a commitment to this belief, that he has taken irrevocable actions because of it; finally, suppose that he is presented with evidence, unequivocal and undeniable evidence, that his belief is wrong: what will happen? The individual will frequently emerge, not only unshaken, but even more convinced of the truth of his beliefs than ever before. Indeed, he may even show a new fervor about convincing and converting other people to his view.

(Festinger, Riecken, and Schachter 1956, pp. 27–8)

Consider what happens when people are presented with evidence that comes from a trusted source, but contradicts one of their important beliefs. A group of researchers met with a church youth group. They (falsely) explained that more scrolls had been found near the Dead Sea. They went on to say that scientific tests established that the scrolls were authentic and that they contained correspondence among the apostles shortly after Jesus Christ had been crucified. This correspondence revealed that Christ was not God. The members of the youth group were told that the New York Times, under pressure from the World Council of Churches, was withholding the story. The group was led to believe that the reactions of various people were being studied to see what would happen if and when the New York Times released the story. What do you think happened to the beliefs of those who initially believed that Christ was God, and who also believed that the evidence was authentic? Did they increase or decrease their belief that Christ was God?

When evidence shows that a person is wrong about an important belief, that person is likely to fight to retain the prior belief, and as a result, will become even more convinced of its truth. Thus, the subjects increased their belief that Christ was God (Batson 1975).

The implication of the above findings is that if an ad presents good evidence to challenge an important belief, it might backfire. An experiment to test U.S. Surgeon General warnings on bottles and cans of alcoholic beverages found that those exposed to the warnings reported higher drinking intentions than those not exposed to warnings (Snyder and Blood 1992).

In another lab experiment, descriptions of films were provided to 60 men and women. Some of the descriptions included warnings by the U.S. Surgeon General about violent programs. The subjects who received the warnings reported a higher interest in watching violent programs (Bushman and Stack 1996).

Resistance to rational thinking

I refer to “rational thinking” as an economist would define it—cost/benefit thinking. There are a number of alternatives to rational thinking, such as to use values—that is, to consider such things as a person’s opinion as to whether something is fair, ethical, or humane.

Larrick, Nisbett, and Morgan (1993) conducted two lab experiments to compare those who use economic rationality and those who do not. First, subjects were classified as using rationality based on their responses to questions such as: “Imagine that you are watching a bad movie for which you have paid $5. If the movie had been free, you probably would leave. What would an economist recommend that you do?” The four possible responses ranged from: “Stay, although the movie is bad, because you have already spent $5 on it. Otherwise, you are wasting your money,” to “Leave because the movie is bad and the $5 does not matter now.” This question relates to the sunk-cost fallacy. The answers were organized from 1 to 4 with “4” as being the most rational.

Here is another question used in the Larrick team’s assessment of rationality:

As you may know, there are continuing problems with assuring that