there are those who study cognitive dissonance



and errors in cognition

It would seem they are used against many regularly...


is governed, in large part, unconsciously by two spontaneous rules: 'acquiescence’ and 'segregation.’ We can think of these as rules of ... 'mental sloth’:

'Acquiescence’ means that when we are faced with a reasonable formulation of a problem involving choice, we accept it in the terms in which it is formulated and do not seek an alternative form. In other words, we ... seek to solve a problem as presented. Thanks to our cognitive sloth, we become prisoners of the frame we are offered.

[Segregation:] We isolate the problem from its global context; the problem itself becomes the immediate and exclusive center of our attention. We do not take into account all the pros and cons of our choice and its consequences. Having narrowly considered only the choices offered us, rather than considering the various global possibilities or probabilities available ... in myopic fashion we take up only those actions and solutions that have an immediate effect on the situation.

— Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds, 1994







When making judgments and decisions, we employ a variety of informal rules and strategies that simplify fundamentally difficult problems and allow us to solve them without excessive effort and stress. These strategies are generally effective, but the benefit of simplification is paid for at the cost of occasional systematic error. There is, in other words, an ease/accuracy trade-off in human judgment.

— Thomas Gilovich, How We Know What Isn't So: The Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life, 1991




We can sometimes become overly impressed by data which, upon closer inspection, merely suggests credence to a particular argument or idea. Subsequently accepting this hypothesis as true, despite the apparent inadequacies, we fail to see beyond this 'illusion of validity.’ The belief then becomes accepted, incorporating itself in our personal paradigms, with the believer(s) consequently professing vehemently that this is a 'logical’ conclusion drawn from 'objective evidence’ that 'any rational person can see.’

— H. J. Einhorn and Robin M Hogarth, Psychology Review, 85: "Confidence in judgment: persistence of the illusion of validity," 1977















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