logical fallacies – Blatherish

Article: “How politics makes us stupid,” By Ezra Klein, for Vox

About the research of Dan Kahan, a professor of law and psychology at Yale, and the Cultural Cognition Project.
Kahan’s theory is called Identity-Protective Cognition: our brains subconsciously work to justify and protect the beliefs that matter to our relationships, group membership, and identity.

Podcast episode: “How our unchecked tribal psychology pollutes politics, science, and just about everything else”, By David McRaney

A podcast episode in which McRaney interviews Lilliana Mason and Dan Kahan about motivated reasoning.
Basic point: Once an issue becomes politicized, our brains work subconsciously to maintain the beliefs that will preserve our relationships, group belonging, and identity.
Related: McRaney’s series on “The Backfire Effect”, episodes 93, 94, 95, and 120.

My personal take:

As noted by both Kahan and Klein, because motivated reasoning occurs outside of our conscious awareness and control, it is difficult to know when one is impacted by it. There is a natural tendency to try to make a special case for the objectivity of oneself or one’s own domain. McRaney, even as he’s describing the phenomenon, demonstrates this behavior when he writes, “In a professional domain like medicine, science, academia, or journalism, people are trained to pursue accuracy, to operate within a framework that helps them overcome other motivations.” He’s right that these domains include a framework that helps achieve greater objectivity, but I don’t believe he adequately acknowledges the degree to which even these “professional” domains can be impacted by motivated reasoning. (At least, not in that specific spot; he may, elsewhere.)
McRaney’s “You Are Not So Smart” podcast provides a great education the many ways our brains work against objectivity and reason.