{"id":128318,"date":"2024-08-02T11:04:12","date_gmt":"2024-08-02T15:04:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=128318"},"modified":"2024-08-13T15:54:25","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T19:54:25","slug":"wrong-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wrong-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Did We Inherit Right and Wrong Thinking as Survival Tools?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Why does being right feel so good? How might being wrong actually be a survival skill?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her book Being Wrong<\/em>, Kathryn Schulz explores the fascinating world of right and wrong thinking. She explains how our beliefs are formed and why we cling to them, even when they’re incorrect. She provides insights into the evolutionary benefits of both being right and being wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keep reading to discover how our brains process uncertainty and why admitting mistakes is so challenging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Right and Wrong Thinking<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Schulz doesn\u2019t define right and wrong thinking in terms of \u201ctruth,\u201d instead focusing on the experience of changing your mind from one idea to another. This is because the traditional definition of \u201cbeing wrong\u201d\u2014that you believe something is true when it isn\u2019t\u2014implies that there\u2019s an underlying \u201ctruth\u201d that every belief can be judged against. While this may apply to some situations, such as misremembering where you left your keys, it doesn\u2019t hold for all situations, such as matters of personal taste or opinion. In these instances, we act <\/em>as if opinions can be wrong, such as whether pickles taste good or bad, even if there\u2019s no objective truth either way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Often, we\u2019ll judge the \u201ctruth\u201d of a subjective belief\u2014such as whether a goal is achievable\u2014by the outcome of that belief. In some cases, the act of belief itself can become a self-fulfilling truth. In his biography of Steve Jobs<\/a>, Walter Isaacson writes that the Apple cofounder exuded what his employees dubbed a \u201creality distortion field.<\/a>\u201d Jobs would set ambitious project goals and insist they were attainable even when his workers insisted he was wrong. In many cases, Jobs was proven right by his subsequent success, but had he not pushed his beliefs so strongly, he would have been proven \u201cwrong\u201d\u2014as Schulz defines the term\u2014and been forced to pivot, as he did after several of his failed business ventures.<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right thinking and wrong thinking are both essential human aspects, says Schulz. Being \u201cright\u201d\u2014assuming that beliefs are true and acting on them accordingly\u2014is a survival tool we inherited from our prehistoric peers. After all, if you\u2019re in the savannah and hear a noise you believe to be a lion, it\u2019s better to act on that belief without question than to wait and study the matter in depth, increasing your risk of turning into a snack. As a result, being right feels good, and evolution rewards that feeling. However, Schulz argues that our ability to be wrong is also <\/em>a survival skill in that it lets us imagine a different world than the one we live in<\/strong>\u2014a world that, while technically \u201cwrong,\u201d helps us look past our limited perceptions to solve problems. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, imagine that your car\u2014which you thought was running fine\u2014breaks down on the highway. At once, your mind starts generating theories about why your car malfunctioned. Most of these thoughts will be just as incorrect as your prior belief that your car was in good order, but they let your mind work on solutions to various contingencies until you have more data. This same impulse let our ancient ancestors imagine better hunting ground past the horizon, whether or not it was actually there, driving the human race to spread across the globe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Schulz equates imagination with error since whatever you imagine is, by definition, a mental model that exists only outside of objective reality. However, some psychologists prefer to characterize imaginative problem-solving as a form of play<\/a>. This is especially evident in children, who envision scenarios from multiple points of view while adopting various roles to imitate adult behavior. This shift in perspective not only opens your mind to new possibilities, but also helps to encourage empathy by imagining life beyond your direct experience. What you imagine may certainly be \u201cwrong\u201d in that you can\u2019t exactly model what you don\u2019t know first-hand, but it\u2019s a mind-broadening exercise nonetheless.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re Programmed to Believe<\/strong>

Research into how beliefs are formed<\/a> sheds even more light on why it\u2019s so easy to believe what isn\u2019t true. The key lies in how our brains process uncertainty. In Thinking in Bets<\/em><\/a>, poker expert Annie Duke explains that life is so full of randomness and uncertainty<\/a> that most of the decisions we make aren\u2019t right or <\/em>wrong, but exist on a spectrum from poor to pretty good<\/a>. Therefore, in the name of efficiency and fast decision-making<\/a>, evolution has tuned our brains to prioritize reducing uncertainty. This increases our odds <\/em>of making good judgments quickly rather than dithering over an issue (such as whether that\u2019s really <\/em>a lion stalking you) to the point that being right puts your survival at risk.

Duke goes on to explain that because our ancestors\u2019 survival relied on trusting their senses, the belief-formation process in our brains is predisposed to accept things as fact rather than to doubt them. Studies have shown that our minds process information as if it\u2019s true even if it\u2019s explicitly presented as false<\/a>, especially in times of stress. And once we\u2019ve accepted one belief as true, we use it as a framework to process and accept other potentially false beliefs<\/a>, changing our very perception. The science, therefore, backs up Schulz\u2019s premise that holding mistaken beliefs is baked into our nature\u2014it\u2019s there in the wiring of our brains.<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since we like to cling to the feeling that we\u2019re right, the conflicts we experience aren\u2019t between \u201cright\u201d and \u201cwrong,\u201d but between opposing views<\/a> of \u201cright,\u201d<\/strong> writes Schulz. Our society doesn\u2019t even afford us a healthy common language for admitting to mistakes without associated shame. Instead, we prioritize being right above all else while happily pointing out the mistakes of others. When we\u2019re forced to confront our errors, we\u2019ll either shift the blame or disassociate ourselves from our wrongness with the classic line, \u201cMistakes were made.\u201d This robs us of the lessons we might learn from opening ourselves to the chance that we\u2019re wrong, thereby harming relationships between people, cultures, religions, and nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Shortform note: Part of the reason we don\u2019t admit we\u2019re wrong is that having to do so induces a form of mental tension called cognitive dissonance<\/a>. In Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me)<\/em><\/a>, Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson define cognitive dissonance as the uncomfortable state of holding two or more contradictory beliefs at once<\/a>. In the case of admitting that you\u2019re wrong, the dissonance comes from wanting to maintain your belief in yourself<\/a> as a rational person while also believing in your capacity for error. According to Tavris and Aronson, we often try to defuse this mental state by justifying our beliefs to ourselves<\/a> in ways that drive us apart from other people<\/a> whose beliefs and ideas don\u2019t align with our own.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why does being right feel so good? How might being wrong actually be a survival skill? In her book Being Wrong, Kathryn Schulz explores the fascinating world of right and wrong thinking. She explains how our beliefs are formed and why we cling to them, even when they’re incorrect. She provides insights into the evolutionary benefits of both being right and being wrong. Keep reading to discover how our brains process uncertainty and why admitting mistakes is so challenging.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":128372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[1568],"class_list":["post-128318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-psychology","tag-being-wrong","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"\nDid We Inherit Right and Wrong Thinking as Survival Tools? - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Kathryn Schulz explores the surprising benefits of right and wrong thinking. 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