scholarly journals How reappraisal of new information contributes to optimistic belief updating

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Kube ◽  
Julia Glombiewski
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
Good News ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
New Information ◽  
N 93

People update their beliefs selectively in response to good news and disregard bad news, referred to as the optimism bias. Yet, the precise cognitive mechanisms underlying this asymmetry in belief updating are largely unknown. In three experiments, we tested the hypothesis that cognitive immunisation against new information contributes to optimistic belief updating (e.g. through questioning the reliability of new information). In each study, participants received new information in relation to their prior beliefs, and we examined the influence of cognitive immunisation on belief updating by using a three-group modulation protocol: In one group, cognitive immunisation against new information was promoted; in another group, cognitive immunisation was inhibited; and a control group received no manipulation. This modulation protocol was applied to beliefs about the self, i.e. performance expectations (Experiment 1&2; N=99 and N=93), and beliefs about climate change (Experiment 3; N=227) as an example of factual beliefs. The results of Experiments 1&2 showed that the cognitive immunisation manipulation had no influence on the update of performance-related expectations. In Experiment 3, we did find significant group differences in belief updating, and this effect interacted with participants’ general attitudes towards climate change: people who were sceptical about man-made climate change lowered their estimates of the projected temperature rise particularly if they perceived scientific information on climate change as being fraught with uncertainty. These findings suggest that the importance of cognitive immunisation in belief updating may depend on the content of beliefs (i.e. self-related vs. factual) and participants’ attitudes to the subject in question.

How negative mood hinders belief updating in depression: results from two experimental studies

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Tobias Kube ◽  
Lukas Kirchner ◽  
Thomas Gärtner ◽  
Julia Anna Glombiewski
Keyword(s):  
Performance Feedback ◽  
Negative Mood ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Positive Mood ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
Negative Beliefs ◽  
Clinically Depressed ◽  
Happy Mood

Abstract Background In two experimental studies, we tested the hypothesis that negative mood would hinder the revision of negative beliefs in response to unexpectedly positive information in depression, whereas positive mood was expected to enhance belief updating. Methods In study 1 (N = 101), we used a subclinical sample to compare the film-based induction of sad v. happy mood with a distraction control group. Subsequently, participants underwent a well-established paradigm to examine intra-individual changes in performance-related expectations after unexpectedly positive performance feedback. In study 2, we applied the belief-updating task from study 1 to an inpatient sample (N = 81) and induced sad v. happy mood via film-clips v. recall of autobiographic events. Results The results of study 1 showed no significant group differences in belief updating; the severity of depressive symptoms was a negative predictor of belief revision, though, and there was a non-significant trend suggesting that the presence of sad mood hindered belief updating in the subgroup of participants with a diagnosed depressive episode. Study 2 revealed that participants updated their expectations significantly less in line with positive feedback when they underwent the induction of negative mood prior to feedback, relative to positive mood. Conclusions By indicating that the presence of negative mood can hinder the revision of negative beliefs in clinically depressed people, our findings suggest that learning from new experiences can be hampered if state negative mood is activated. Thus, interventions relying on learning from novel positive experiences should aim at reducing state negative mood in depression.

How the positivity of new information influences belief updating in depression - The more, the better?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Kube ◽  
Lukas Kirchner ◽  
Gunnar Lemmer ◽  
Julia Glombiewski
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Traditional Learning ◽  
False Feedback ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Positive Information ◽  
New Information ◽  
New Learning ◽  
Interaction Task ◽  
Disconfirming Information

Aberrant belief updating has been linked to psychopathology, e.g., depressive symptoms. While previous research used to treat belief-confirming vs. -disconfirming information as binary concepts, the present research varied the extent to which new information deviates from prior beliefs and examined its influence on belief updating. In a false feedback task (Study 1; N = 379) and a social interaction task (Study 2; N = 292), participants received slightly positive, moderately positive or extremely positive information in relation to their prior beliefs. In both studies, new information was deemed most reliable if it was moderately positive. Yet, differences in the positivity of new information had only small effects on belief updating. In Study 1, depressive symptoms were related to difficulties in generalizing positive new learning experiences. The findings suggest that, contrary to traditional learning models, the larger the differences between prior beliefs and new information, the more beliefs are not updated.

Factors influencing the update of beliefs regarding controversial political issues

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Kube
Keyword(s):  
Prediction Error ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Main Hypothesis ◽  
Political Issues ◽  
New Information ◽  
The World ◽  
Disconfirming Information ◽  
Selective Integration

When updating beliefs in light of new information, people preferentially integrate information that is consistent with their prior beliefs and helps them construe a coherent view of the world. Such a selective integration of new information likely contributes to belief polarisation and compromises public discourse. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the factors that underlie biased belief updating. To this end, I conducted three pre-registered experiments covering different controversial political issues (i.e., Experiment 1: climate change, Experiment 2: speed limit on highways, Experiment 3: immigration in relation to violent crime). The main hypothesis was that negative reappraisal of new information (referred to as “cognitive immunisation”) hinders belief updating. Support for this hypothesis was found only in Experiment 2. In all experiments, the magnitude of the prediction error (i.e., the discrepancy between prior beliefs and new information) was strongly related to belief updating. Across experiments, participants’ general attitudes regarding the respective issue influenced the strength of beliefs, but not their update. The present findings provide some indication that the engagement in cognitive immunisation can lead to the maintenance of beliefs despite disconfirming information. However, by far the largest association with belief updating was with the magnitude of the prediction error.

scholarly journals Contested science: Individuals with higher metacognitive insight into interpretation of evidence are less likely to polarize

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Said ◽  
Helen Fischer ◽  
Gerrit Anders
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Signal Detection ◽  
Signal Detection Theory ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Lower Likelihood ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractSocietal polarization over contested science has increased in recent years. To explain this development, political, sociological, and psychological research has identified societal macro-phenomena as well as cognitive micro-level factors that explain how citizens reason about the science. Here we take a radically different perspective, and highlight the effects of metacognition: How citizens reason about their own reasoning. Leveraging methods from Signal Detection Theory, we investigated the importance of metacognitive insight for polarization for the heavily contested topic of climate change, and the less heavily contested topic of nanotechnology. We found that, for climate change (but not for nanotechnology), higher insight into the accuracy of own interpretations of the available scientific evidence related to a lower likelihood of polarization over the science. This finding held irrespective of the direction of the scientific evidence (endorsing or rejecting anthropogenicity of climate change). Furthermore, the polarizing effect of scientific evidence could be traced back to higher metacognitive insight fostering belief-updating in the direction of the evidence at the expense of own, prior beliefs. By demonstrating how metacognition links to polarization, the present research adds to our understanding of the drivers of societal polarization over science.

How Negative Mood Hinders Belief Updating in Depression - Results from two Experimental Studies

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Kube ◽  
Lukas Kirchner ◽  
Thomas Gärtner ◽  
Julia Glombiewski
Keyword(s):  
Performance Feedback ◽  
Negative Mood ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Positive Mood ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Significant Group ◽  
Negative Beliefs ◽  
Happy Mood ◽  
Sad Mood

Background: In two experimental studies, we tested the hypothesis that negative mood would hinder the revision of negative beliefs in response to unexpectedly positive information in depression, whereas positive mood was expected to enhance belief updating. Methods: In Study 1 (N = 101), we used a subclinical sample to compare the film-based induction of sad vs. happy mood with a distraction control group. Subsequently, participants underwent a well-established paradigm to examine intra-individual changes in performance-related expectations after unexpectedly positive performance feedback. In Study 2, we applied the belief-updating task from Study 1 to an inpatient sample (N = 81) and induced sad vs. happy mood via film-clips vs. recall of autobiographic events. Results: The results of Study 1 showed no significant group differences in belief updating; the severity of depressive symptoms was a negative predictor of belief revision, though, and there was a non-significant trend suggesting that the presence of sad mood hindered belief updating in the subgroup of participants with a diagnosed depressive episode. Study 2 revealed that participants updated their expectations significantly less in line with positive feedback when they underwent the induction of sad mood prior to feedback, relative to positive mood. Conclusions: By indicating that the presence of sad mood can hinder the revision of negative beliefs in clinically depressed people, our findings suggest that learning from new experiences can be hampered if state negative mood is activated. Thus, interventions relying on learning from novel positive experiences should aim at reducing state negative mood in depression.

scholarly journals Placebo response and psychosis: a putative shared mechanism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Hird
Keyword(s):  
Side Effects ◽  
Cognitive Theory ◽  
Placebo Response ◽  
Placebo Treatment ◽  
Primary Treatment ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
New Information ◽  
New Treatments ◽  
Sensitive Method

Computational cognitive theory proposes that our experiences represent an optimisation between new information and prior beliefs, which are updated to best reflect reality. However, experiences can be biased. One example is the placebo response (PR), where a persistent belief in the effectiveness of a treatment relieves symptoms, even though the ‘treatment’ is an inert sugar pill. Another example is psychosis, which is characterised by unusual percepts and beliefs in the form of hallucinations and delusions. Antipsychotic medication, the primary treatment for psychosis, is often ineffective and accompanied by severe side-effects, but we have not identified an effective alternative. This is likely because the large and heterogenous placebo response in psychosis is likely to create noise in trials and so disrupts attempts to identify new treatments. This well-recognised issue could be solved if we can predict how an individual is likely to respond to placebo treatment and account for placebo responses. Importantly, biomarkers predicting the placebo response have been identified chiefly in pain and depression, but not in psychosis. Quantifying individual belief-updating, and tendency to rely on prior beliefs versus new information, would provide a sensitive method to predict the PR in psychosis.

scholarly journals How People Update Beliefs about Climate Change: Good News and Bad News

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cass R Sunstein ◽  
Sebastian Bobadilla-Suarez ◽  
Stephanie C. Lazzaro ◽  
Tali Sharot
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Temperature Rise ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Good News ◽  
International Agreement ◽  
Average Temperature ◽  
New Information ◽  
Politics And Law ◽  
New Evidence

102 Cornell L. Rev. 1431 (2017)People are frequently exposed to competing evidence about climate change. We examined how new information alters people’s beliefs. We find that people who are not sure that man-made climate change is occurring, and who do not favor an international agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, show a form of asymmetrical updating: They change their beliefs in response to unexpected good news (suggesting that average temperature rise is likely to be less than previously thought) and fail to change their beliefs in response to unexpected bad news (suggesting that average temperature rise is likely to be greater than previously thought). By contrast, people who strongly believe that manmade climate change is occurring, and who favor an international agreement, show the opposite asymmetry: They change their beliefs far more in response to unexpected bad news (suggesting that average temperature rise is likely to be greater than previously thought) than in response to unexpected good news (suggesting that average temperature rise is likely to be smaller than previously thought). The results suggest that exposure to varied scientific evidence about climate change may increase polarization within a population due to asymmetrical updating. We explore the implications of our findings for how people will update their beliefs upon receiving new evidence about climate change, and also for other beliefs relevant to politics and law.

scholarly journals Contested Science: Individual-level insight into interpretation of evidence explains group- level polarization

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Said ◽  
Helen Fischer ◽  
Gerrit Anders
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Scientific Evidence ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Insight Into

Societal polarization over contested science has increased in the recent years. To explain thisworrisome trend, political, sociological, and psychological research has identified societal macro-phenomena as well as cognitive micro-level factors that explain how citizens reason about thescience. Here we take a radically different perspective, and highlight the effects of metacognition:How citizens reason about their own reasoning. Leveraging methods from Signal DetectionTheory, we investigated the importance of individual-level metacognitive insight for group-levelpolarization for the heavily contested topic of climate change, and the less heavily contested topicof nanotechnology. We found that, for climate change (but not for nanotechnology), increasedinsight into the accuracy of own interpretations of the available scientific evidence related tolower group-level polarization over the science. This finding held irrespective of the direction ofthe scientific evidence (endorsing or rejecting anthropogenicity of climate change). Furthermore,the polarizing effect of scientific evidence could be traced back to higher metacognitive insightfostering belief-updating in the direction of the evidence at the expense of own, prior beliefs. Bydemonstrating how individual-level metacognition links to group-level polarization, the presentresearch adds to our understanding of the drivers of societal polarization over science.

scholarly journals No Evidence for the Involvement of Cognitive Immunisation in Updating Beliefs About the Self in Three Non-Clinical Samples

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tobias Kube ◽  
Julia Anna Glombiewski
Keyword(s):  
Depressive Symptoms ◽  
Negative Feedback ◽  
Performance Feedback ◽  
Positive Feedback ◽  
Clinical Samples ◽  
Control Group ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Increased Sensitivity ◽  
Disconfirming Information

Abstract Background Cognitive immunisation against disconfirmatory evidence (i.e., devaluing expectation-disconfirming information through cognitive mechanisms) has recently been discussed as an obstacle to the revision of dysfunctional beliefs in mental disorders such as depression. Yet, it is unclear whether cognitive immunisation is also involved in belief updating in non-clinical samples. Methods Using a three-group modulation protocol (promotion vs. inhibition of cognitive immunisation vs. control group), we examined how cognitive immunisation influences belief updating in response to performance feedback in three non-clinical samples. In Experiments 1 (N = 99) and 2 (N = 93), participants received unexpectedly negative feedback, whereas participants from Experiment 3 (N = 118) received unexpectedly positive feedback. Depressive symptoms and dispositional optimism were examined as additional predictors of belief updating. Results In all experiments, participants adjusted their expectations in line with the feedback received, but this effect was not influenced by the cognitive immunisation manipulation. In Experiment 3, expectation change remained stable over 2 weeks. Depressive symptoms were associated with a reduced integration of positive feedback, but not with an increased sensitivity to negative feedback. Conclusions Whereas previous research has shown that cognitive immunisation contributes to persistent beliefs in clinical populations, the present findings suggest that it does not affect belief updating in non-clinical samples.

scholarly journals Bayesian or biased? Analytic thinking and political belief updating

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben M Tappin ◽  
Gordon Pennycook ◽  
David Gertler Rand
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Reflection Test ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Analytic Thinking ◽  
Belief Updating ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
New Information ◽  
Informative Signals ◽  
Biased Processing ◽  
Surprising Finding ◽  
Cognitive Sophistication

A surprising finding from U.S. opinion surveys is that political disagreements tend to be greatest among the most cognitively sophisticated opposing partisans. Recent experiments suggest a hypothesis that could explain this pattern: cognitive sophistication magnifies politically biased processing of new information. However, the designs of these experiments tend to contain several limitations that complicate their support for this hypothesis. In particular, they tend to (i) focus on people’s worldviews and political identities, at the expense of their other, more specific prior beliefs, (ii) lack direct comparison with a politically unbiased benchmark, and (iii) focus on people’s judgments of new information, rather than on their posterior beliefs following exposure to the information. We report two studies designed to address these limitations. In our design, U.S. subjects received noisy but informative signals about the truth or falsity of partisan political questions, and we measured their prior and posterior beliefs, and cognitive sophistication, operationalized as analytic thinking inferred via performance on the Cognitive Reflection Test. We compared subjects’ posterior beliefs to an unbiased Bayesian benchmark. We found little evidence that analytic thinking magnified politically biased deviations from the benchmark. In contrast, we found consistent evidence that greater analytic thinking was associated with posterior beliefs closer to the benchmark. Together, these results are inconsistent with the hypothesis that cognitive sophistication magnifies politically biased processing. We discuss differences between our design and prior work that can inform future tests of this hypothesis.

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