It's a tendency to assume a certain conclusion before any evidence is even examined and then to cherrypick or invent evidence to fit that preexisting conclusion.

It leads to obvious closed epistemic loops - the worst case I am familiar with are conspiracy theorists who treat lack of evidence for the conspiracy as evidence of it being... correct (since it means the conspriacy is powerful enough to suppress evidence).

Any ideas?

Because it works.

47 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

It's a tendency to assume a certain conclusion before any evidence is even examined and then to cherrypick or invent evidence to fit that preexisting conclusion.

It leads to obvious closed epistemic loops - the worst case I am familiar with are conspiracy theorists who treat lack of evidence for the conspiracy as evidence of it being... correct (since it means the conspriacy is powerful enough to suppress evidence).

Any ideas?

I should have thought the reason is to enable quick decisions, without having to wait until it is too late to act. One uses partial evidence and consults one's prior learning and experience as to what the evidence suggests and decides on the basis of what seems probable. We do it all the time.

I think you are not correct to assume these decisions are based on no evidence. It is just that the evidence supplied is misinterpreted due to biased learning. For instance: light in the sky, moving apparently oddly, without sound -> little green men, because we've just read "Chariots of the Gods".

27 minutes ago, Genady said:

Because it works.

Does it? The quality of politics around the world suggests otherwise...

32 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

Does it? The quality of politics around the world suggests otherwise...

Yes, it does. It is an effective manipulation technique.

2 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

It's a tendency to assume a certain conclusion before any evidence is even examined and then to cherrypick or invent evidence to fit that preexisting conclusion.

It leads to obvious closed epistemic loops - the worst case I am familiar with are conspiracy theorists who treat lack of evidence for the conspiracy as evidence of it being... correct (since it means the conspriacy is powerful enough to suppress evidence).

Any ideas?

I don't understand your question.

Are you saying that misuse is the only human use of this process ?

or

Are you saying this is a danger of using this process ?

Or what ?

22 minutes ago, studiot said:

I don't understand your question.

Are you saying that misuse is the only human use of this process ?

or

Are you saying this is a danger of using this process ?

Or what ?

Indeed, also @Otto Kretschmer what is motivated doing in the title?

32 minutes ago, studiot said:

I don't understand your question.

Are you saying that misuse is the only human use of this process ?

or

Are you saying this is a danger of using this process ?

Or what ?

I'd say it's the 2nd. I just thought about the negaive impact of this tendency first, since I learned about it through the negative examples.

2 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

It's a tendency to assume a certain conclusion before any evidence is even examined and then to cherrypick or invent evidence to fit that preexisting conclusion.

Survival, motivated by fear of being eaten.

2 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

It leads to obvious closed epistemic loops - the worst case I am familiar with are conspiracy theorists who treat lack of evidence for the conspiracy as evidence of it being... correct (since it means the conspriacy is powerful enough to suppress evidence).

Any ideas?

This is a different question (political), the motivation is still fear though.

Reasoning is a byproduct of intelligence, our ability to apply it effectively, as with all life, lies on a spectrum...

Edited yesterday at 12:47 PM1 day by dimreepr

30 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Survival, motivated by fear of being eaten.

Elsa the lion(ess)

30 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

our ability to apply it effectively, as with all life, lies on a spectrum...

Indeed, and possible responses to any issue can be quite complex.

But the starting point would normally be the recognition that there is an issue.

34 minutes ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

I'd say it's the 2nd. I just thought about the negaive impact of this tendency first, since I learned about it through the negative examples.

Thank you for your measured response.

This will make for a much better discussion.

5 minutes ago, studiot said:

But the starting point would normally be the recognition that there is an issue.

Politically, there's always an issue.

7 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

Politically, there's always an issue.

But this has been posted in Psychiatry, not Politcs.

And Psychiatry is a statistical subject, where such a thing as 'the Null Hypothesis' is defined.

18 minutes ago, studiot said:

Thank you for your measured response.

This will make for a much better discussion.

You're welcome!

Edited yesterday at 01:39 PM1 day by Otto Kretschmer

1 minute ago, studiot said:

But this has been posted in Psychiatry, not Politcs.

And Psychiatry is a statistical subject, where such a thing as 'the Null Hypothesis' is defined.

I'm unsure what the difference is, in this thread/topic

But as a matter of interest, is the null hypothesis, not just contentment?

Unless we're getting into a Hari Seldon situation.

6 minutes ago, dimreepr said:

I'm unsure what the difference is, in this thread/topic

But as a matter of interest, is the null hypothesis, not just contentment?

Unless we're getting into a Hari Seldon situation.

Unfortunately there are far too many quasi statistical 'arguments' created by those who do not properly understand the importance of an appropriate NH.

Contentment is far too general, for instance, except for those statisticians shooting the breeze after 6 pints apiece.

This is, after all, a Science forum and Psychiatry is, afer all, a scientific discipline.

So is it unreasonable for me to expect a scientific discussion ?

Otto seems to want to discuss the dangers of 'prejudging the issue', and I agree with him that there many examples in history, some serious some not so much, and that danger continues to this day.

I think the title might be the wrong way around. What I mean is that first animals at some point developed the ability to:

6 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

It's a tendency to assume a certain conclusion

Which I interpret as the ability to intuitively make assumptions about the world around us. This is something we share with (I think) most animals to some degree. I think the ability for higher level reasoning came later, and the "motivated reasoning" is applying higher order reasoning skills to justify intuition.

Obviously for complicated situations this approach is faulty as everyone recognizes, but doing more thorough analyzes is harder and often requires additional skills that many may be lacking. So the reasoning then defaults to the intuitive approach.

My take:

For tens of thousands of years humans must have done well enough with mostly inductive thinking: It's always worked, let's keep doing it --in its crudest form.

In order to do better than 'well enough', the most powerful driving force behind why people would have been led to motivated reasoning --that I can think of-- is: This time it didn't work. Why? Something like "we've lost two members of our clan, even though we did exactly the same. What could have failed this time?"

11 hours ago, Otto Kretschmer said:

Why did motivated reasoning evolve in humans?

I challenge the premise and posit that it evolved long before humans ever entered the scene

28 minutes ago, iNow said:

I challenge the premise and posit that it evolved long before humans ever entered the scene

I have disagreed with Otto on several occasions, but on this one I cannot see why so many folks are addressing a different topic than what has been stated and clearly amplified by the OP.

4 hours ago, CharonY said:

I think the title might be the wrong way around. What I mean is that first animals at some point developed the ability to:

Which I interpret as the ability to intuitively make assumptions about the world around us. This is something we share with (I think) most animals to some degree. I think the ability for higher level reasoning came later, and the "motivated reasoning" is applying higher order reasoning skills to justify intuition.

Obviously for complicated situations this approach is faulty as everyone recognizes, but doing more thorough analyzes is harder and often requires additional skills that many may be lacking. So the reasoning then defaults to the intuitive approach.

I think it important to distinguish between instinct and intuition in this case.

Are there any non human examples where an animal "brainwashes" itself for material gain?

That could be a precursor to a human "brainwashing" themselves for a perceived psychological gain (which is what I understand the OP to be about)

Any examples of an animal deliberately disregarding evidence in any circumstance?

Could it be that there is animal behaviour where more than 1 piece of evidence is used for any particular goal and that those pieces of evidence are "weighted internally?

(I think some animals do practice deceit and trickery but do they ever turn that tool on themselves?)

21 minutes ago, geordief said:

Are there any non human examples where an animal "brainwashes" itself for material gain?

That could be a precursor to a human "brainwashing" themselves for a perceived psychological gain (which is what I understand the OP to be about)

Any examples of an animal deliberately disregarding evidence in any circumstance?

Could it be that there is animal behaviour where more than 1 piece of evidence is used for any particular goal and that those pieces of evidence are "weighted internally?

(I think some animals do practice deceit and trickery but do they ever turn that tool on themselves?)

Not sure what you mean by brainwashing.

Not even sure that other animals engage in Otto's 'reasoning'.

That is what I meant by the difference between intuition and instinct.

Some animals have been known to chew their own foot off to escape a trap.

Less gory examples might be that different birds build different types of nests and beavers build all sorts of structures that benefit the environment.

But do any of these examples involve reasoning - or are they just instinct ?

Intuition, to me, seems to involve a form of reasoning where what happened in one instance is remembered and compared with and applied in a similar circustance on another occasion.

37 minutes ago, studiot said:

Not sure what you mean by brainwashing.

Not even sure that other animals engage in Otto's 'reasoning'.

That is what I meant by the difference between intuition and instinct.

Some animals have been known to chew their own foot off to escape a trap.

Less gory examples might be that different birds build different types of nests and beavers build all sorts of structures that benefit the environment.

But do any of these examples involve reasoning - or are they just instinct ?

Intuition, to me, seems to involve a form of reasoning where what happened in one instance is remembered and compared with and applied in a similar circustance on another occasion.

By "brainwashing" I mean (as per the OP,I think) that one deliberately or unconsciously "skips over" inconvenient evidence in favour of more reassuring evidence that fits in with preconceived ideas.

It reminds me a bit of the skit (was it Frank Muir?) taking off an Indian man getting fitted out in Saville Row as an English Gent in full regalia ,with a witty punch line that escapes me.-ah yes it was "but sir,why are you are weeping" "because we lost the empire"

It would be great if there was an animal behaviour that bore an relationship to that kind of behaviour where details are overlooked in favour of a more comfortable outcome.

I think we have the "deaf ear" when we pretend not to hear something and this can become physically true with practice.

Maybe I anthropomorphise my pet but I often remark to myself that it is purposefully ignoring me(if the weather is bad it will not respond although it will be all over me otherwise as it lives for its daily walks -and seems to be on tenterhooks waiting to be asked out)

Do you think the dog could be displaying intuition by comparing fair weather offerings against "head down" rainy day preferences?

Edited 21 hours ago21 hr by geordief

5 hours ago, studiot said:

I think it important to distinguish between instinct and intuition in this case.

While I think the distinction might be important, it is also a fair bit more complicated. Both concepts are heavily debated in lit. Instinct, for example, has become a catch-all term in animal behaviour for many aspects that are likely entirely distinct mechanisms. Much of how we understand instinct is based on works of folks like Konrad Lorenz, which were great at its time and immensely influential. However, modern behavioural sciences, especially in conjunction with advances in the area of neurobiology, but also a much more individualized approach to behavioural observation.

For example, for a time behaviour like head-scratching in bird was a prime example of instinctual behaviour (IIRC, it was about the crossing of a hindleg over the wing). In early papers parallels were drawn between how birds and other vertebrates do it, suggesting an evolutionary root how this "clumsy" behaviour is established and universal. However, in the 80s there were reports that this behaviour is much less universal, and especially younger birds will use a different method (leg under wing) and that depending on how they perch and where they center of gravity is, they will switch.

So starting in 80s there was already some rumbling that things that appeared to be universal behaviour, and thus instinctual might actually be more learned and adapted to situations than originally thought. I have not been doing much research in that particular area, except occasionally grabbing some papers to have a good time, but it seems to me that though has gained massive momentum around the 2010s where behavioral scientist started to work much more individualized with animals, instead of the traditional approach (which I also learned as student) to create broad categories over large populations to make statistical analyses easier.
The result was in many animals folks started to find evidence of higher reasoning (though there is bias regarding species being used, such as crows) and that the idea of an instinct has become much more nuanced. And because it is hard to nail down, it is something that (at least the papers I read) is not used anymore, at least in the formerly used way. Rather, it is being framed as a disposition towards certain behaviours, modified by learning (i.e. experience). Now, this is not to say that there are no hardwired-reflexive pathways, but where once animal behavior has been described as repetitive and instinctual, I think the research is changing its thinking about that. This is an analogous development to how we increasingly see the nature vs nurture debate or the role of genetics in complex physiological outcomes.

Also as a side, it is a bit interesting to me that in the evolutionary psych area (which itself has issues) the older concepts of instinct seem to still be more prevalent than in behavioral sciences.

23 hours ago, studiot said:

Unfortunately there are far too many quasi statistical 'arguments' created by those who do not properly understand the importance of an appropriate NH.

Contentment is far too general, for instance, except for those statisticians shooting the breeze after 6 pints apiece.

This is, after all, a Science forum and Psychiatry is, afer all, a scientific discipline.

So is it unreasonable for me to expect a scientific discussion ?

Not at all, but is it unreasonable for me to question the premise 'of the start point'?