Abstract

The desire to maintain current beliefs can lead individuals to evaluate contrary evidence more critically than consistent evidence. We test whether priming individuals’ scientific reasoning skills reduces this often-observed myside bias, when people evaluate scientific evidence about which they have prior positions. We conducted three experiments in which participants read a news-style article about a study that either supported or opposed their attitudes regarding the Affordable Care Act. We manipulated whether participants completed a test posing scientific reasoning problems before or after reading the article and evaluating the evidence that it reported. Consistent with previous research, we found that participants were biased in favor of evidence consistent with their prior attitudes regarding the Affordable Care Act. Priming individuals’ scientific reasoning skills reduced myside bias only when accompanied by direct instructions to apply those skills to the task at hand. We discuss the processes contributing to biased evaluation of scientific evidence.

摘要

维持当前信念的愿望可能导致个人比一致证据更严格地评估相反证据。我们测试了激发个人的科学推理能力是否会减少这种经常被观察到的偏见，当人们评估有关其先前职位的科学证据时。我们进行了三个实验，参与者在其中阅读了一篇有关该研究的新闻文章，该文章支持或反对他们对“可负担医疗法案”的态度。我们操纵参与者在阅读文章并评估其报告的证据之前或之后是否完成了构成科学推理问题的测试。与先前的研究一致，我们发现参与者对支持与他们之前对《可负担医疗法案》的态度一致的证据持偏见。提倡个人的科学推理能力仅在伴有将这些技能应用于手头任务的直接指示时，才能减少我的偏见。我们讨论了导致对科学证据进行偏见评估的过程。