I Don't Want to Be Right - Summary and Response

In her article, I Don’t Want to Be Right, Maria Konnikova develops the idea that facts and evidence are not able to change people’s minds. She opens by discussing an experiment by Brendan Nyhan, about people’s opinions on vaccinations. Through this experiment, she reports, that facts, science, emotions, and stories fail to opinions, especially when something that is important to someone is confronted and contradicted. Konnikova discusses further experiments throughout the piece to back up her argument. She points out that studies have shown that corrections that are contrary to people’s beliefs do not work; they actually can end up causing a sense of distrust.  Konnikova goes on to say that judgment can be influenced by strongly held beliefs, even when people are aware and accepting of the facts.  Next, she brings up Nyhan who expresses that false beliefs tend to be related to self-identity, not always politics. She continues by discussing a study that showed that self-affirmation helps people to perform better on things such as tests.  Based on her sources, Konnikova suggests that the only way to change beliefs may be to present issues in a broader way, leaving out the political, ideological, and content that causes people to be self-reflective as well as facts and evidence because they are just now effective enough. She also suggests that if leaders of an opinion change, their ‘followers’ are also more likely to change. This is how Konnikova concludes, with the addition that ideology can have a strong influence and should be left to the side when trying to change beliefs.
In their articles, both Konnikova and Mooney share the idea that beliefs are hard, if not impossible to change. They also agree that if we were to try to change people’s beliefs, facts and evidence are not the most convincing way to do so. Furthermore, they both agree that corrections to false beliefs or just contradictions to their beliefs can cause the exact opposite of the intended changing of beliefs and actually cause them to hold on more strongly to their belief and can cause a sense of distrust towards those trying to convince them that they are wrong.  Konnikova offers some more insights, including the self-affirmation theory. The self-affirmation theory says that if a person goes through a series of self-affirming points before a test, then they are likely to do better on the test, the opposite is true as well with doing worse. This helps explain why people change their mind because it explains the role self-reflection has on people’s beliefs; if a belief is seen as threatening to their identity, then they are less likely to believe it or change their mind. On the other hand, if an idea is seen as neutral in regards to thee effect on their identity, they are more likely to be open to facts and evidence and allow their minds to be changed. Self-affirmation can be blamed for people’s inability to change their mind because if the opposite idea threatens their identity they feel threatened and will not change their mind even if there are facts and hard evidence present; it is o threatening to who they are and the confidence they have in their self, that it is not worth throwing that away and accept the facts.