Failure to Change One's Opinion and the Self-Serving Bias (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_793)
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
170.32521
Summary
Gad Saad is a visiting professor and a global ambassador at Northwood University. He has been a psychologist for over 30 years and is a regular contributor to the New York Times, CNN, NPR, and the Wall Street Journal. In this episode, he talks about why it's so hard for people to change their minds, and how to get over it.
Transcript
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Gad Saad's a visiting professor and a global ambassador at Northwood University.
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Professor Saad, they say insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting
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a different result. Isn't that insane then what the Democrats keep saying over and over?
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So there are two features that are really regrettable when it comes to the architecture
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of the human mind. Number one is how difficult it is to get someone to change their anchored
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position. I could show you a tsunami of evidence, and yet you'll still go, la, la, la, I don't want
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to hear it. That's exactly what the Democrats are doing. Second regrettable feature of the
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architecture of the human mind is something called the self-serving bias, which is we tend
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to attribute successes internally and failures externally. So if I did well on the exam, it's
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because I'm smart. If I did poorly on the exam, it's because Professor Saad is a mean professor.
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That's exactly what the Democrats are doing, which is none of their failures stem from their
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failed policy positions. It must be outside to them. So they are just exactly engaging what
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a psychologist as myself would expect. That was a brilliant piece of analysis, and it explains
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why I have such a hard time changing my mind and blaming other people. How do you, and I'm not
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asking for me personally, but how does one, Professor Saad, grow up and get over this?
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You know, Thomas Sowell, the famous economist, used to be a Marxist, and then once he was asked
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later in his life, what is it that made you realize that your Marxist views were wrong and you should be
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for free markets? He gave a one-word answer, facts. So it requires intellectual humility and
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intellectual honesty to at least allow for the possibility that if information comes in that
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contradicts your position, you're at least willing to entertain a change. So I think, though,
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regrettably, for most people, as I have found out being a professor for over 30 years, most people
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just go, la, la, la, I don't want to hear it. So it's a tough battle.
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All right. So we're governed by people that go la, la, la. That's great. It makes me so optimistic.
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I thought we had a chance, and now I don't think so. All right, Professor Saad, great to talk to you
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as always. I will send you a check in the mail. Cheers. Thank you so much.