The Selective Laziness of Reasoning

[Gary C]

May be relevant to UFO/Woo adherents being unable to recognize the flaws in their own arguments.

Abstract
Reasoning research suggests that people use more stringent criteria when they evaluate others' arguments than when they produce arguments themselves. To demonstrate this "selective laziness," we used a choice blindness manipulation. In two experiments, participants had to produce a series of arguments in response to reasoning problems, and they were then asked to evaluate other people's arguments about the same problems. Unknown to the participants, in one of the trials, they were presented with their own argument as if it was someone else's. Among those participants who accepted the manipulation and thus thought they were evaluating someone else's argument, more than half (56% and 58%) rejected the arguments that were in fact their own. Moreover, participants were more likely to reject their own arguments for invalid than for valid answers. This demonstrates that people are more critical of other people's arguments than of their own, without being overly critical: They are better able to tell valid from invalid arguments when the arguments are someone else's rather than their own.

download here - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cogs.12303

 

[Mendel]

From the abstract, it seems to me that it's an example of confirmation bias at play. Not really surprising, but nice to have it confirmed.

 

[NoParty]

May be relevant to UFO/Woo adherents being unable to recognize the flaws in their own arguments.

Abstract
Reasoning research suggests that people use more stringent criteria when they evaluate others' arguments than when they produce arguments themselves. To demonstrate this "selective laziness," we used a choice blindness manipulation. In two experiments, participants had to produce a series of arguments in response to reasoning problems, and they were then asked to evaluate other people's arguments about the same problems. Unknown to the participants, in one of the trials, they were presented with their own argument as if it was someone else's. Among those participants who accepted the manipulation and thus thought they were evaluating someone else's argument, more than half (56% and 58%) rejected the arguments that were in fact their own. Moreover, participants were more likely to reject their own arguments for invalid than for valid answers. This demonstrates that people are more critical of other people's arguments than of their own, without being overly critical: They are better able to tell valid from invalid arguments when the arguments are someone else's rather than their own.

download here - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/cogs.12303

It relates (in my wacky mind, anyway) to the psychological concept of special privilege...
in which we generally measure ourselves with a more generous, forgiving yardstick than we do others.
Some would just call it "human nature." ;P

While there's a humorous side to the double standard, it has some real world bad consequences:
Right now, for instance, in the US, some white males in power are generally trying to gaslight the country
into believing that white males alone have truly earned whatever success they have, while others did not.
It's undeniably racist & sexist...but so far the opposing party has only mildly objected.
(One of the best white privileges, is being able to punish those who point out or oppose white privilege)

From the abstract, it seems to me that it's an example of confirmation bias at play. Not really surprising, but nice to have it confirmed.

Agreed, agreed...and agreed.

 

[FatPhil]

From the abstract, it seems to me that it's an example of confirmation bias at play. Not really surprising, but nice to have it confirmed.

I'm not seeing confirmation bias there at all. Confirmation bias would make them more likely to favour views that they had held themselves, not reject them.

(I'm not overlooking the fact that you might have just been going for the funny +1, in which case, rest assured, I got it.)

 

[Mendel]

I'm not seeing confirmation bias there at all. Confirmation bias would make them more likely to favour views that they had held themselves, not reject them.

Well, they only reject these arguments when they don't recognize them as their own, so...

Article:

People display this bias when they select information that supports their views, ignoring contrary information or when they interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing attitudes.

Later work re-interpreted these results as a tendency to test ideas in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and ignoring alternatives.

Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

So when I find a solution to a reasoning problem, I tend to think "that's good", and don't necessarily go on to consider alternatives. I'm biased in favor of the solution I found myself.

But when I'm not constructing a solution, but rather critiquing one, my approach is different, and I think more in terms of "how does this measure up to other arguments I could come up with". It's a different mode of thought.

So this "selective laziness" is a form of confirmation bias, because I think my own argument is so good that I don't need to challenge it to see if it holds up, even if it maybe wouldn't if I went that extra step.

 

[Z.W. Wolf]

Is this confirmation bias?

It's selective evaluation bias—a kind of motivated reasoning. AKA - "myside bias."

Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, and recall information in a way that confirms one's preexisting beliefs or hypotheses.

What's the difference?

People apply more stringent standards when evaluating others' arguments than when evaluating their own. The key mechanism is leniency toward one's own reasoning and greater scrutiny toward others'. Rather than a search for confirming evidence.

It is related to confirmation bias, but this is more about egocentric or identity-protective reasoning—people are selectively "lazy" about scrutinizing their own views, but more critical of external ones.

But why?

People don't argue - "An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition." - they fight.

This is all about the Argumentative Theory of Reasoning

Human reasoning evolved not primarily for solitary truth-seeking but for social interaction, especially to persuade others and evaluate their arguments with an eye for defeating counter-arguments.

My own speculation. Many people with autism lack a talent for fighting and are focused on solitary truth-seeking They are often under-employed because most people hate the truth the way a vampire hates garlic. The way you get ahead is to support the fantasies of the guy who is above you in the social hierarchy. And to crush your rivals and keep them below you. What's truth got to do with it?

The Flat Earth Method of Enquiry is a distillation of the tendency to fight rather than reason. ...in my opinion.

Spoiler: The Flat Earth Method Of Enquiry And Debate

The Flat Earth Method Of Enquiry And Debate

-Appeal to Common Sense (Argumentum ad Populum or Intuition Fallacy)
Assumes something must be true because it "just makes sense" or "feels right" to a person or a group, without providing evidence or logical reasoning.

-The claim is made without physical calculations.

-Disregards well-documented scientific observations.

-Disregards well understood science.

-Objections are met with ad hoc excuses.

-Objections are met with personal hostility.

-Objections are met with alternative facts.


And let's add:

Appeal to Emotion - usually negative (e.g. fear, anger, disgust, contempt). Often with paranoid elements.

Best source:

The Enigma of Reason - Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber

"Reason is not a mechanism for individual cognition but for social interaction—a tool for winning arguments, not necessarily for getting things right." In this case argument = fight... not a connected series of statements, etc.

 

[yoshy]

Thanks for posting! That's a very clever experimental design to have them unknowingly rate their own arguments! I recommend everybody read sections 1 (Introduction) and 4 (Discussion) to get the meat of the discussion. They're both pretty short sections. Sections 2 and 3 are much longer and more detailed about the methodology. Not necessary to read for discussing the concepts imo.

Confirmation bias is definitely related but the researchers noted it is already well studied

The way people produce arguments is doubly problematic. First, they mostly find argu-
ments for their own side. Second, these arguments tend to be relatively weak. The first
trait of argument production—the confirmation bias or myside bias—has been the topic
of much attention (see, e.g., Nickerson, 1998). The later has been comparatively
neglected, but is well supported by the existing evidence

So the researchers specifically wanted to investigate the asymmetry between production and evaluation of arguments.

From section 1 Introduction:

The asymmetry that has the greatest ecological validity is that between the production of arguments and the evaluation of arguments whose conclusion one disagrees with—thisis what happens in a standard exchange of arguments in which two or more people try toconvince each other of their respective viewpoints. However, this asymmetry has onlybeen indirectly demonstrated, from comparisons of disparate studies, and it is confoundedby the fact that argument quality varies between different contexts and interlocutors. Aconvincing demonstration of this asymmetry would instead involve participants evaluatingtheir own arguments as if they were someone else's. We would then expect that the par-ticipants would reject many of the arguments they deemed good enough to produce, ifthey thought the arguments came from someone else and they disagreed with theirE. Trouche et al. / Cognitive Science 40 (2016) 2123conclusion. Moreover, they should be better at discriminating between their own goodand bad arguments when they think they are someone else's and they disagree with theirconclusion.

From section 4 Discussion:

These experiments provide a very clear demonstration of the selective laziness of rea-soning. When reasoning produces arguments, it mostly produces post-hoc justificationsfor intuitive answers, and it is not particularly critical of one's arguments for invalidanswers. By contrast, when reasoning evaluates the very same arguments as if they weresomeone else's, it proves both critical and discriminating.

 

[FatPhil]

That's a very clever experimental design to have them unknowingly rate their own arguments!

However, were I trying to gather reliable data about the functioning of the brain, the people whom I would exclude from the experiment would be people who are unable to recognise their own arguments.

However, studying dysfunction is also useful, so this is not low-value science. The website refuses to give me access to the actual paper, but the abstract gives me a vibe of people wanting to "one up" other people. In the absence of anything, their argument's better than nothing; in the presence of their argument, they think they can come up with a better take.

 

[Gary C]

However, were I trying to gather reliable data about the functioning of the brain, the people whom I would exclude from the experiment would be people who are unable to recognise their own arguments.

However, studying dysfunction is also useful, so this is not low-value science. The website refuses to give me access to the actual paper, but the abstract gives me a vibe of people wanting to "one up" other people. In the absence of anything, their argument's better than nothing; in the presence of their argument, they think they can come up with a better take.

Not sure why it wasn't free for you. Copy provided by DM.