the interviewer’s legs?) (Ross & Nisbett, 1991). Such hypothesis testing can be influenced by the motivations that are active at the time, thereby enhancing the likelihood that we will reach a desired conclusion (Mullen & Skitka, 2006). When gathering evidence to evaluate the validity of a belief, we tend to look primarily at instances that confirm that belief and to ignore or discount those that do not (Traut-Mattausch, Jonas, Frey, & Zanna, 2011; Trope & Liberman, 1996). For instance, if you are testing the proposition that Norwegian men are handsome, then you are likely to look primarily for cases that could support it (finding Norwegian men who are attractive) rather than those that might undermine it (searching for less attractive Norwegian men) (Snyder & Swann, 1978b). We call this tendency to search only for evidence that supports our beliefs and to ignore information that disagrees with them the confirmation bias (Gilbey & Hill, 2012; Nickerson, 1998; Snyder & Swann, 1978a). Evidence for the confirmation bias has been found in how people assess the accuracy of sex role stereotypes (Marks & Fraley, 2006), assignment of diagnoses by psychiatrists (Mendel et al., 2011), and how people gather evidence about a suspect in criminal investigations (Kukucka & Kassin, 2014; Rassin, Eerland, & Kuijpers, 2010).
Confirmation Bias: Tendency to search only for evidence that supports one’s beliefs and to ignore information that disagrees with them
Biased Evaluation of Information
People’s motivations can influence not only searches for new information but also the evaluation of existing information. Vallone, Ross, and Lepper (1985) exposed research participants to news videos reporting the killing of civilians by Israeli soldiers in a refugee camp in the Middle Eastern nation of Lebanon in 1982. Students who were already pro-Arab perceived the news reports to be biased against Arabs, whereas pro-Israeli students interpreted the reports as biased against Israelis. In each case, participants held preexisting beliefs that the media were biased against their own opinions and perceived the news stories as confirming that media bias. Of course, sometimes the media really are biased in its reports of world events, such as in the case of the 2002 Olympic skating controversy, discussed above (Stepanova et al., 2009). More generally, sometimes people will interpret information in ways that make that information appear to support their own perspectives (Greitemeyer, Fischer, Frey, & Schulz-Hardt, 2009; Mojzisch, Grouneva, & Schulz-Hardt, 2010). For instance, viewers of presidential debates overwhelmingly believe that their favored candidate “won” against an opponent (Kinder & Sears, 1985).
Such biased assimilation—the interpretation of information so that it seems similar to or consistent with one’s preferred perspective—occurs even when people are evaluating purportedly scientific evidence. Lord, Ross, and Lepper (1979) provided pro- and anti-capital punishment participants with two studies, one which supported the deterrent effects of capital punishment and one that demonstrated the opposite. The “pro” individuals assessed the “pro” study as more valid than the “anti” study, whereas the “anti” students evaluated them in the opposite way. This occurred despite the fact that the researchers controlled for differences in the methodologies between the studies: Whichever study participants disagreed with was more strongly criticized. Even psychologists are not immune to such biased thinking, at times evaluating the validity of research results in a manner consistent with their own preferred explanations (Hergovich, Schott, & Burger, 2010). Think about the ongoing debate about whether the death penalty reduces crime rates . . . how do you suppose advocates on each side evaluate evidence that contradicts their perspectives?
As you can see, people often engage in motivated reasoning that results in the gathering and/or evaluation of evidence so that it appears consistent with what they want to believe. In later chapters, we’ll extend our discussion of the effects that motivations, feelings, and goals have on many other social psychological processes, including how we determine the causes of social behavior, susceptibility to social influence, and perceptions of other groups. For now, let’s turn our attention to another key influence on our reasoning processes: culture.
Biased Assimilation: Construing information so that it seems similar to or consistent with one’s preferred perspective
Think Again!
1 What are the implications of motivated reasoning for your own thinking?
2 Define and give your own example of the confirmation bias.
3 What does it mean to engage in biased assimilation?
Culture And Cognition
Which is true? (a) Cigarette smoking is correlated with being skinny; (b) heavy doses of nicotine often result in becoming overweight. Although I cannot predict which one you chose, I am betting that you selected only one. People from Western cultures, such as those in Western Europe and North America, tend to believe that only one of the statements is true because they appear to contradict one another. East Asians, in contrast, would be less likely to view them in an either/or fashion and would instead try to identify a third way, one in which both can be correct or partially correct (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). This example, adapted from research by Peng and Nisbett (1999), illustrates how tolerance for contradiction in particular and fundamental reasoning processes more generally vary across cultures.
That humans must categorize information, store information in memory, and solve social and other problems is universally true; however, the way we accomplish these tasks can depend on our cultural background (Berry, 2015; Chiu & Hong, 2007; Segall, Dasen, Berry, & Poortinga, 1999). Some of the most important cultural variations in cognitive processes roughly occur along an East-West division, with the East referring to East Asia and the West to North America and Western Europe (Zaroff, D’Amato, & Bender, 2014). These cultural distinctions can be traced back at least 2,000 years to the Chinese scholar Confucius, on the one hand, and the Greek philosopher Socrates, on the other (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001).
The core distinction is nicely summarized by a statement made by a Chinese student to Richard Nisbett, an American social psychologist: “The difference between you and me is that I think the world is a circle, and you think it is a line” (Nisbett, 2003, p. xiii). What this short sentence refers to is the fundamentally divergent ways that reality is perceived by Easterners versus Westerners (Medin & Atran, 2004; Norenzayan, Choi, & Peng, 2007). A Westerner may zoom in on a circle and see only one segment, which would resemble a line. An Easterner would stand back and see the entire circle. The Westerner sees change as linear and one directional, as if a person were traveling along a one-way road leading into the future. In contrast, the Easterner sees change as cyclical, as if a person were traversing a path that repeatedly folds back onto itself.
Paintings East and West
Western paintings typically have a lower horizon and larger people; Eastern paintings tend to have higher horizons and to depict people as small in comparison to their environment.
By Poemandpainting (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Author: Mr. Chen Minglou.
Heritage Images/Corbis. Author: George Orleans De La Motte.
Another East-West difference is illustrated by prototypical paintings from each cultural group. Masuda, Gonzalez, Kwan, and Nisbett (2008) examined the content and perspective in paintings of people by Chinese and Western artists. They found that, in general,
