From: NBC News
The Science Behind Why People Think They’re Right When They’re Actually Wrong
There may be a psychological reason why some people aren’t just wrong in an argument — they’re confidently wrong.
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Todd Rogers, a behavioral scientist at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, likened the findings to the “invisible gorilla” study, which illustrated the psychological phenomenon of “inattentional blindness,” when a person does not realize something obvious because they are focused on something else.
“This study captures that with information,” Rogers said. “There seems to be a cognitive tendency to not realize the information we have is inadequate.”
The study also parallels a psychological phenomenon, called the “illusion of explanatory depth,” in which people underestimate what they know about a certain topic, said Barry Schwartz, a psychologist and professor emeritus in social theory and social action at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.
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