Doubt yourself or stagnate
Life is nothing if not opportunity to grow. In fact, the very definition of life includes the “capacity for growth” and “continual change preceding death.”
So stubbornly sticking to one way of thinking, hands over ears and megaphone to mouth, isn’t just extreme, it literally impedes thinking.
Research on American thought published in December in the journal Current Biology helps explain how those who hold extreme political beliefs — far right and far left — lose the ability to evaluate their own thoughts. That not only reduces accuracy, it makes growth and learning highly unlikely.
Apparently, the brain needs to doubt itself to fully function.
Extreme and polarizing political views are doing more than dividing society and increasing anxiety. They’re dumbing us down as we lose metacognition, the research suggests.
Metacognition is the ability to evaluate whether our own thoughts or behavior could be wrong. That applies to decisions from traffic maneuvers and moving plans to budgeting, child-rearing, and voting. Metacognition helps us adapt, with a healthy level of self-doubt.
“It’s been known for some time now that in studies of people holding radical beliefs, that they tend to … express higher confidence in their beliefs than others,” University College London neuroscientist and study author Steve Fleming told Popular Science Magazine. “But it was unknown whether this was just a general sense of confidence in everything they believe, or whether it was reflective of a change in metacognition.”
To answer that, the UCL researchers removed partisanship from the equation, asking nearly 800 Americans questions with objective answers. First, the subjects identified themselves along a political spectrum, including political orientation, voting, stance on issues, and rigidity (tolerance or intolerance of opposing views).
Next, the subjects were asked to simply choose which of paired images had a greater density of dots in a cluster. Finally, the subjects rated their confidence in the dot-density answers.
The scientists found that while both radical and moderate-view subjects completed the exercise with about the same accuracy, the extreme-minded ones were far less likely to be any less confident after incorrect answers.
That suggests people with extreme views are unlikely to recognize errors, and thus doomed to repeat them.
Unlike murky answers to political conundrums, one group of dots was unquestionably more numerous than the other. But regardless of whether or not there was an objective answer, the “radicals” were far less likely to question their own opinions.
This finding, wrote the researchers, suggests metacognition plays a part in shaping beliefs. In other words, those at extreme ends actually can’t question their own ideas the same way more moderate people can.
Which is the chicken or egg — whether radical beliefs shape metacognition or vice versa — wasn’t studied here. Research on adolescents published in Consciousness and Cognition in March 2015 found that such self-awareness and the practice of reflecting on our own beliefs and behavior improved student achievement.
A small but growing segment of scientists are studying how people can improve metacognitive skills to better enable shared decisions.
Better metacognition would be so helpful to voters and lawmakers. Entrenched and polarizing beliefs in American society alienate the hoi polloi (ordinary people — today’s weird word), prevent understanding, disincentivize consensus and moderation, and make negativity so pervasive.
That’s clearly not working for us. Understanding the role of metacognition may help us step back from it — and grow again.
To read the full report see: Bit.ly/2Zw06mh
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Sholeh Patrick, J.D. is columnist for the Hagadone News Network who’s pulling for a new American ethic: Metacognition. Contact her at Sholeh@cdapress.com.