(Perception of Reality Inside Your Mind)
People often believe they know more than they actually do. What allows us to persist in this belief is our reliance on other people.
Take, for example, the light bulb, which was designed by someone else. We are good at screwing in a light bulb, and we believe we understand how it works. However, we are relying on the expertise of others since the light bulb was invented.
When asked to write a detailed, step-by-step explanation of how the light bulb works and rate their understanding again, people often reveal their own ignorance. Their self-assessments of their understanding of the light bulb drop when they try to write down a detailed description of how it is made and works.
It is one thing to know how to change a light bulb without knowing how it is made, and it’s another to have an opinion on a topic like immigration without understanding it. In a survey conducted in 2014, respondents were asked how they thought the US should react to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and whether they could identify Ukraine on a map. The farther off base they were about the geography, the more likely they were to favor military intervention.
This is how a lack of knowledge can become dangerous. When asked for their stance on questions like “Should there be a single-payer healthcare system?” or “Should teachers receive merit-based pay?” and asked to rate their positions depending on how strongly they agreed or disagreed with the proposals, most people run into trouble when asked to explain the impacts of implementing each one. Once they can’t explain, they tend to ratchet down their intensity and agree or disagree less vehemently.
Strong feelings about issues do not emerge from deep understanding. They often emerge from a sense of fear of not knowing, and people’s opinions are often based on the opinions of others who reinforce their opinions. For example, if two people have an opinion on something baseless and a third person agrees with them, the three of them feel even more confident in their opinion. The more confident they become, the more dismissive they are of information that contradicts their opinion.
By instilling fear of baseless facts in a group of people, it may not be enough to provoke a reaction, but if many people install the same fear, people’s brains begin to believe it to be true. The more people who believe in that fear, the more they will spread it to others. When people hear the truth, their brains may not believe it to be true because so many people believe in baseless facts.
