How We Know What Isn't So

Chapter 5:
Seeing What We Want To See

How We Know What Isn’t So




Bob Buchanan
Marc Brasher
Christian Romieh
Sajeel Manzoor
Cyndy Sims

Thomas Gilovich, in How We Know What Isn’t So, discusses that even though people consider their beliefs to be closely tied to relevant evidence, they are generally unaware that the same pertinent evidence could be looked at differently, or that there is other equally pertinent evidence to consider. “When we prefer to believe something, we may approach the relevant evidence by asking ourselves, ‘what evidence is there to support this belief?’ This question directs our attention to supportive evidence and away from information that might contradict the desired conclusion. Because it is almost always possible to uncover some supportive evidence, the asymmetrical w...