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A belief is a conviction we hold about whether something is true or false and is often formed on the basis of evidence or information that we accept as true. Sometimes we have a belief that, when originally formed, was based on reasonably good evidence. Take for instance belief in the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq before the 2002 multinational invasion. U.S. political leaders—including President Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell—argued that Iraq was an imminent and significant threat to Americans because it had substantial stockpiles of WMDs that could be used against the United States or its allies. At the time, ordinary Americans, U.S. Senators and Representatives, and the leaders of the United Nations and many allied nations accepted the data supplied by the U.S. government as valid evidence for this claim. However, after the invasion and intensive efforts to locate material traces of WMDs, it became clear that there were in fact none to be found. Nevertheless, many people—even those who acknowledged the fact that the initial evidence that led them to believe Iraq had WMDs was false—continued to believe that Iraq had them (Lewandowsky, Stritzke, Oberauer, & Morales, 2005).

In the Iraq case, beliefs about WMDs that were formed on the basis of specific evidence persisted despite the fact that all of the evidence was later demonstrated to be false. This phenomenon of holding onto a belief that been undermined by the facts is called unwarranted belief perseverance (Bui, 2014; Ross, Lepper, & Hubbard, 1975). Belief perseverance occurs when the evidence for a particular belief has been completely discredited, yet the belief continues.

In one laboratory study, Craig Anderson (1983) provided data to some participants that demonstrated that risk takers made more successful fire fighters than risk avoiders, whereas participants in another condition were supplied with data stating the opposite (that risk takers were less successful fire fighters than risk avoiders). After all participants wrote a short paragraph justifying their beliefs, Anderson told them that the data that they were provided had been completely falsified, and that there was no evidence that risk taking and fire fighting success were in any way correlated. After the evidence for their beliefs had been undermined, participants stated what their true beliefs were about this relationship, as if they had not been exposed to the evidence in this experiment at all. Despite this clear and total undermining of the supposed evidence, participants typically believed that a relationship existed between risk taking and fire fighting success. In other words, their beliefs persevered despite the fact that there was no longer any evidence to support them. These participants seemed to think that their beliefs about this relationship predated the experiment, although this was highly unlikely. Control group participants not exposed to any evidence about this relationship tended to have no strong belief about the relationship between risk taking and success as a firefighter (see Figure 3.4).

Why do false beliefs persist? In part because we feel pressure to stick with our commitments, including commitments to beliefs, and therefore find it surprisingly difficult to give them up (Cialdini, 2008; Ross et al., 1975). Second, the explanations that the participants had created to justify their belief—perhaps based on a story of a firefighter who took a risk and saved a life that they had learned about in another context—continued to support the participants’ initial beliefs and remained available to the participant after the given explanation was undermined (Anderson, 1983; Anderson, Lepper, & Ross, 1980; Davies, 1997; Nestler, 2010). It did not seem to matter that their self-generated explanations were not based on evidence.

Can you think of a way to overcome this problem? Take a minute . . . if thinking about an event makes it seem more likely to be true, then is there something else one can think about that might counter it? What about carefully considering how the exact opposite of what you initially believed could instead be true?

Figure 3.4 Debiasing in the Perseverance of Social Theories

Source: Adapted from Figure 1, Anderson, C. A. (1982). Inoculation and counterexplanation: Debiasing techniques in the perseverance of social theories. Social Cognition, 1(2), 126–139.

Motivated Reasoning: Person’s mental processing is influenced by her or his desires, feelings, or goals

Belief Perseverance: Phenomenon of holding onto a belief when its validity has been undermined by the facts