I think this is a version of a more general form of motivated reasoning where one seeks out a variable in an argument which is:
imprecise,
ambiguous,
dependent on multiple other hard-to-track variables, or
a variable over which they can claim unique knowledge (here, ‘what I am good at personally and how good at it I am’)
which they can then ratchet up to the maximum value for things they want to believe and the minimum value for things they don’t want to believe.
I noticed this acutely in the comments on the 80k/Rational Animations crossover video, namely things like “If you become a doctor, you don’t know how many life-saving situations you run into” (imprecision about likelihoods) or “Dr. Nalin couldn’t have achieved what he did without the help of many others, down to the bricklayers and garbagemen who provided the essentials he needed to focus” (ambiguity/dependencies about credit).
Finding low-confrontation ways to point such things out seems valuable. Maybe the Scout Mindset remains the best work here.
It is scary and painful for people to admit they were mistaken, especially about their basic narratives concerning what’s valuable or what they intended to do with their lives. I’d guess highlighting that truth-seeking is a broader, more-endorsed narrative – that also implies lots of changing your mind – is one way to shake people out of these more contingent narratives.
I think this is a version of a more general form of motivated reasoning where one seeks out a variable in an argument which is:
imprecise,
ambiguous,
dependent on multiple other hard-to-track variables, or
a variable over which they can claim unique knowledge (here, ‘what I am good at personally and how good at it I am’)
which they can then ratchet up to the maximum value for things they want to believe and the minimum value for things they don’t want to believe.
I noticed this acutely in the comments on the 80k/Rational Animations crossover video, namely things like “If you become a doctor, you don’t know how many life-saving situations you run into” (imprecision about likelihoods) or “Dr. Nalin couldn’t have achieved what he did without the help of many others, down to the bricklayers and garbagemen who provided the essentials he needed to focus” (ambiguity/dependencies about credit).
Finding low-confrontation ways to point such things out seems valuable. Maybe the Scout Mindset remains the best work here.
It is scary and painful for people to admit they were mistaken, especially about their basic narratives concerning what’s valuable or what they intended to do with their lives. I’d guess highlighting that truth-seeking is a broader, more-endorsed narrative – that also implies lots of changing your mind – is one way to shake people out of these more contingent narratives.