Trumping logic with belief

One of the most pervasive illusions from which everyone suffers

is belief bias. This is the tendency to accept the logic of an argu-

ment not so much by a dispassionate Critical‐Thinker‐style

analysis of its structure, but simply by an instinctive, knee‐jerk

assessment of the plausibility or otherwise of the conclusions.

In one study (by Jonathan Evans, Julie Barston and Paul Pollard)

people were asked to evaluate arguments expressed in formal

style — as syllogisms. (A syllogism is an argument which con-

sists of two premises, or starting assumptions, followed by a

conclusion which is supposed to follow logically on from it.)

The researchers were really investigating the extent to which

people simply accept arguments they encounter that support

existing beliefs, without any real examination. This idea (also

explored in Chapter 2) connects to the one about the human

brain being ‘hard‐wired’ after aeons of hunting wildebeest

Everyone’s a bit better than average

According to Thomas Gilovich, a

professor of psychology at Cornell

University in the US, a survey of

one million high‐school seniors

found that 70 per cent thought they

were above average in leadership

ability, and only 2 per cent thought

they were below average. Nor did

people grow out of their unrealistic

self‐assessments — a similar exer-

cise involving university professors

found that 94 per cent thought they

were better at their jobs than their

run‐of‐the‐mill colleagues!

Other studies reveal that most

people consider themselves to be

happier, more fair‐minded, more skil-

ful behind the wheel and so on than

‘the average person’. Plus, of course,

most people think that they’re much

less likely to fall into such silly errors

than other people.