Why do most people refuse to accept that they are wrong
Why do most people refuse to accept that they are wrong
I have come across a lot's of people like these. like 99% of them. Sometimes it makes me think twice if what i am saying is wrong? What's wrong with them. Is it so hard to swallow your pride and acknowledge that the other person is speaking facts? When they come to know they are wrong they proceed to insult/make fun of others to save their ass. Just why?
I wouldn't know, because I've never been wrong.
Me neither. OP is obviously an idiot.
OP is obviously wrong themselves and refuses to accept it.
Lol
Best thing my daddy taught me; no matter how confident you are, you could always be wrong. Brains are just unreliable sometimes. Sky is blue? Could be wrong. You’re N years old? Probably… but you could be wrong.
Accepting this allows one to improve. Best we can do is recognize this, and try our best to minimize how often we’re wrong.
This has allowed me to withhold confidence in many situations. Not in deference, but in thoughtful acceptance that I truly might be wrong.
Best dad ever.
That really warms my heart to hear. I'm trying to be one of the good dads.
Just today my 9 year old and I had a conversation about how I'm always the first to step up and admit when I make a mistake, and communicate what I did or will do to fix it, where I have colleagues who will try to hide their mistakes and front like they never ever make them. Going so far as lying to clients, bosses, and coworkers all the way.
The problem with this is the quiet nihilism baked into it, which is the same reason so many people believe that widely supported science could be wrong.
In the absolute sense, it is true. Though things like "the sky is blue" is more about linguistics, but for a layperson it's kind of inconsequential either way. While there is a small possibility that scientific consensus could be wrong, there is orders of magnitude bigger chance that unwarranted skepticism is dangerous. Reality does exist, regardless of how much epistemology you choose to wave away.I don’t think so, and he and I have discussed this in epistemological terms several times over the years. “Sky is blue” example was probably bad as would have been “earth is round” etc. The point isn’t that anything can be wrong, though strictly speaking, I guess it can. What we mean is precisely that our minds have the ability to mislead us and powerfully so. But part of the drive to minimize that is to understand the value of consensus in both scientific communities and wider communities.
To have the best ratio of things about which were correct vs incorrect, being confident in things like the outcome of refereed science is helpful.
When I feel like I am getting dragged into an argument on the internet I try to remember that when two people argue at least 50% of them are wrong.
Not necessarily. Both people can be correct, but arguing just to "win". Both people can also be wrong.
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Because people tie their egos to their opinions and beliefs. They see an attack on those as an attack on their person.
We are all like this to certain extents. For example, I am a firm believer of the right of the individual to make their own choices, and believe that attempts to remove a person's right to make choices morally abhorrent.
It's a basic psychological need to be able to trust that your brain can be right. A lot of psychological problems can result if you don't trust your own brain to be able to solve problems and cope with new information.
Some people don't learn the value of accepting mistakes/failure as part of learning. As a result, they will associate being wrong with weakening the trust they have in their brain. They don't want to believe that their brain may not come up with answers for the problems and changes they face in life. So they will deny that their brain is incorrect.
It's an ugly insecurity, but it's totally understandable from an evolutionary perspective. We need to be able to trust our brains to navigate life's challenges. People need to be taught that it's okay to make mistakes, and that admitting when you are wrong is an opportunity for personal growth.
When trying to persuade someone of something, you need to talk to the elephant, not the rider (emotion, not logic). That's why propaganda works so well and facts don't.
The answer is 1: they're stubborn, but more importantly 2: it's because the human brainly is wired to hate conflicting ideas. Quite literally, when a belief or idea of yours in countered, your brain tells you "your feeling pain and in danger", and this applies to every person, though some people feel it more strongly than others.
Cognitive dissonance. Lots of people never learn and are never taught how to separate their ego from their knowledge. It doesn't help that education still relies on punishing mistakes and failure.
Yes. Most people are this way.
Yup, and when most people are a certain way, odds are you are too. I try to keep an open mind as much as possible because it's very hard to identify your own biases and it would be naive to believe that I am the exception to human nature.
i actually find it reasonably easy to identify my biases, it's just basically impossible to directly act on that knowledge.
if i realize i'm actually probably in the wrong i tend to just sorta.. slide into the shadows and disengage, which is at least better than continuing to insist that i'm correct and just digging in deeper.. Then in the future the brain tends to have let go of it and people have forgot what was said previously and i can upgrade to a more correct take.
Does not stand to scrutiny. I counted and only 3 out of 13 are like that. And only two of those would post online.
Because I'm not wrong, you are.
Because most people, when they’re showing someone else that they’re wrong, choose to twist the knife about it. Onlookers add in jeers and snark, making the experience of admitting one was wrong into an unnecessarily-painful shaming event.
People don’t want to admit they’re wrong, because our culture punishes people who admit they were wrong.
In the cases when a person speaks to me as if I am someone capable of admitting I’m wrong, when they treat it like it’s no big deal I just happen to be wrong, I have no trouble admitting it.
For me what works is to show me without much emotion. Like pointing out to someone they’ve got a leaf in their hair or something. If someone comes at me, with proof that I’m wrong, in the manner of a helpful friend pointing out something I can’t see from my vantage point, it really doesn’t hurt.
But when people are calling me evil, stupid, toxic, etc, I just want to dig in my heels. I might see that I’m wrong, and at that point stop arguing my point, but I won’t actually come out and acknowledge it.
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I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken.
They take it as a personal attack because they have fragile brittle egos.
Hey, I insist I'm right sometimes because I'm fuckin stupid
How very dare you sir
Cognitive dissonance. People see themselves as rational and intelligent and anything that counters that is very difficult to accept, so they double down.
I would accept being wrong, if I ever was.
I'm not tho. 😤
You're wrong about that. 😉
What makes you think it's most people? Who you hangin out with?
Remember, Confucious say: If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.
Sometimes you have to cut your losses and leave a conversation. If it’s some rando on the internet, just walk away and try not to care what they think.
With people you know and respect, you’re gonna have to hunker down for the long haul. Remember, if you come off like a jerk, they’re going to be less likely to accept your argument. Be respectful of their position but ask probing questions. Let them see for themselves that they’re wrong.
if you come off like a jerk, they’re going to be less likely to accept your argument
Very true. Lots of people attempt to package two messages together:
- You’re wrong about this
- You’re worthless
Quite frankly, people should reject the second message, and people who try to package the first with the second should expect listeners to reject the whole package.
Honestly it’s probably better for people to reject that whole package of messages than to accept it, even if it means being wrong, because at least they won’t be taking that toxicity into their soul.
Someone who goes around trying to convey those messages together, to be accepted as a package, is themselves doing it wrong.
I read somewhere a while back that it's supposedly an evolutionary thing. In a social competition for resource allocation, confidently arguing your position regardless of its correctness is more beneficial than admitting you may be wrong.
It's probably exacerbated by the internet, where the relative anonymity and psychological disconnection further reduces any benefits to admitting to an error.
Evolutionary biologist here.
This is actually a tricky one. Lying (and I’m going to fold the projection of false confidence in with that one because I’m talking about deception, intentional or otherwise, not a moral concept) is only effective if others believe you.
Humans, as the most highly social of the primates and ranking among the most highly social animals on earth, have adapted to believe each other, because this helps with trust, coordination, shared identity, learning, and so on. However, it also creates a vulnerability to manipulation by dishonest actors. Again, I’m not talking about a moral dimension here. There are species in which mating is initiated with the gift of a nuptial present (eg a dead bug) from the male to the female. Sometimes the male will give a fake present (already desiccated insect, eg) to trick the female, and sometimes it works. Deception and detection are an arms race, and it’s believed by many to be one of the drivers that lead to the development of human intelligence, where our information processing capacity developed alongside our increasing social complexity.
The problem is that when lying becomes the default, then the beneficial effects of communication cease. It’s like when you stop playing games with a kid that just cheats every time, or stop buying from a store that just rips people off. It’s a strategy that only works if few enough people play it. There’s tons of caveats and additional variables, but that’s the baseline. So why do we still see so much of it?
The first component of course is confirmation bias. If 90% of our interactions are trustworthy, the ones that stick out will be the deceptions, and the biggest deceptions will get the most notice. The second is that the deceptions as a whole have not been impactful enough, over time, to overcome the advantages of trust, either in biological time or in social evolutionary time. You will notice that more trust is given to in-group rather than out-group members, and a number of researchers think that has to do with larger social adaptations, such as collective punishment of deceivers - sending someone to jail for writing bad checks, say, is easier if they’re part of your community as opposed to a tourist from another country. We can also see cultural differences in levels of trust accorded in-group and out-group persons, but that’s getting into a lot of detail.
The third major operator is the concept of the self. This is a subject where we are just being able to start making scientific headway - understanding where the concept of a self comes from in terms of neurobiology and evolutionary dynamics - but this is still very much a new science layered on top of ancient philosophy. In the concept of the self there is a component of what I’m going to calll the physical integrity of the structure. People find being wrong painful - there are social situations that activate the same parts of the physical brain as physical pain and distress do. This is especially true of those ideas are seen as being held by other group members, because you now have the group structural integrity on top of the one in idea-space. That’s where you get people willing to literally die on the hill of Trump winning in 2020. For the evolutionary construction and nature of the self I’d recommend Sapolsky and Metzinger - it’s too new and too complex to get into here. If you want to just summarize it in your mind, call this component ego defense.
I think that’s most of what’s going on, at least as we understand it so far.
Thanks for the educated view on the topic.
Interesting. I was thinking more of gray area stuff than outright lying, like playing up the importance of facts that support one's position and downplaying those that don't.
On the other side of the coin - why do so many people give others shit for being wrong, especially in areas where right or wrong has no real consequences?
Others with bad decision making or reasoning skills has no consequence?
What makes you think you're the one who's in the right? You're another.
Because they're never taught or encounter the notion that its fun to be wrong and learn more to correct and be able to speak more confidently in future.
I love when people correct me and we have a little discourse and the truth-seeking function of this format is satisfied in the end with everybody playfully (or sometimes testily but still vaguely good-faith) cross-examining each other and leaving space for learning and retaining space to allow people to revise when they are genuine in their attempts to understand.
Ego has been mentioned. Sunk cost fallacy plays a part. Combine those and people tend to over value the effort they've made to form their opinion, either through some form of information consumption or synthesis of known ideas/held opinions, while devaluing/doubting the existence other people's previous efforts. So, you often end up with two people who both think they're informed and assume the other person is just making up an opinion right now and failing to see their valuable insight.
Add to this the social stakes, which are often unconscious. "I" might not think I care, but my neurobiology might
It depends. Some people will relentlessly mock you for being wrong, no matter how you handle it. At work I have no problem admitting I messed up something, there's no point and always it's better to just fix it, right?
But with my ex, he was just dead judgemental. Might as well double down if I wasn't sure since my accuracy rate was higher than his.
With husband I can just say I don't know and it's fine. On the occasion I send him something not factual I do send correction there is no penalty, for lack of a better word.
Ah, young grasshopper. You are now discovering the ways of the world. It is not enough simply to be right; one must be cool about it, too. Which unfortunately means not getting pissed off that the other person is talking bullshit, because that only makes whoever you're talking to double down, no matter how pants-on-head their point is.
As to what is wrong with them and why: pride, and embarrassment.
It's a cliche and also very hard advice to follow, but it's true that the best thing to do is smile and walk away. Know that they know you know they're wrong and an idiot, and take comfort in it.
Edit: It's very hard. I struggle with it every day, including yesterday, and today. Just gotta keep trying, we'll get it eventually, right?
Online it can become a competitive thing. They still want to "win" the argument even if the light comes on and they realize they have incorrect or incomplete information and the other side has made better arguments with better evidence. I suspect most people fall into this trap at some point in online forums. I definitely have. Guilty as charged.
And not to excuse this behavior, but part of it comes from poor sportsmanship and lack of grace from damned near everyone vis a vis Twitter/X/Facebook/reddit. People who "win" a competition like this are quick to gloat on how they "owned" the other person. Worse than this, trying to be reasonable and open-minded in these spaces often comes across as weakness.
There is a small movement of folks who call for radical empathy. This is where you do your level best to make a good faith effort to fully understand and see the merits of the other side's arguments even if you don't agree. That way lies learning and growth.
I don’t see admitting that I’m wrong as a weakness, and I’m not afraid to be the first to make a “concession”. I had a very few arguments on reddit turn into something positive (to the surprise of both parties) because I admitted I had made an incorrect assumption, my reasoning was flawed, or whatever. That made it “okay” for the other individual to admit they had made a mistake, too. Importantly, I didn’t use that as an opportunity to judge, criticize, or attack them. From there, we had a real conversation. It didn’t happen often, but it was great when it did!
Of course, most of the time people made cheap insults or just ignored me, but I was okay with that, too. Sure, it was disappointing, but the whole conversation was right there for anyone who wanted to read it. At least I wasn’t the one who looked like a petty asshole.
I’ve often had the same question as OP. I’ve read and understood the replies in this thread, and some of them are very good. I understand the points being made, but I still don’t get it, ya know? Everybody is wrong sometimes. There’s absolutely no shame in it, and it’s completely unrealistic to pretend that you never are. Plus, by keeping an open mind, being wrong is a fantastic way to learn!
I agree with you that it shouldn't come across as weakness, and to a mature person it is sign of strength. I should have phrased it better, but my intention was to say that in these online forums many of the 'spectators' (who up and down vote, and/or pile on) seem to read nuanced arguments and open-minded thinking as being "weak".
In other words, there's often too many points scored for having an aggressive style, nasty sarcasm, insults, etc.
I have struggled against this for a long time. I tend to be a pretty prideful person and the urge to shift blame when I fuck up and deflect when faced with being wrong is something that has I have to actively work to correct. The difference for me came when I was younger in dealing with my parents: My dad was far from perfect and there were plenty of times he was in the wrong, but always made sure to sit down with me and apologize if he fucked up. My mom, for the most part, was better at avoiding being in the wrong in the first place, but when she was, I never once got her to apologize or admit her mistake. Of the two, I was hurt far more by the latter, and make it a point to be willing to admit my shortcomings.
The most difficult part after I identified it as an issue is to not let my willingness to apologize/admit my mistake become a carte blanche for continuing the behavior. If I fuck up, apologizing only means something if I work on the mistake. If I am wrong about somethimg, I should learn about both the thing and where my misconceptions came from.
For a lot of people, realizing it is an issue is difficult, because you first have to let go of the pride by acknowledging it. Shame isn't a good motivator, as it makes most people double down on pride.
Out of curiosity, are you conscious of denying your mistake initially, or is it just an impulsive response? After denying it, do you immediately realize you're lying and just stick with it? No judgment, I'm just asking because someone I care about often does this and I'm just trying to understand it.
Sometimes, mainly when it is stuff that isn't rooted in true or false. If I am factually wrong, it isn't usually concious and I tend realize my mistake after the fact. If I am in the wrong in an emotional/moral way, I tend to realize my mistake while I am still emotionally charged, so I am not always ready to acknowledge it or effectively communicate my apology, though I still try to either admit fault or tell the other person I'd like to discuss it after I have calmed down.
Either way, I usually allow some amount of time for self reflection, which I think is better for me. It allows me to formulate my reasoning for apologizing/admitting my mistake, calm down, and let go of the ego. I have found that even if there is a long pause, the other person almost always will take the follow up discussion with kindness and respect, and appreciates the emotional/intellectual honesty and vulnerability. Nobody has ever rubbed it in my face. Which helps encourage the practice going forward.
It also, in general, facilitates better real-time admission of incorrectness to practice in this way.
We're not wrong OP, you're wrong!!! Right, guys?
It's frustrating, because the people who normally call this out are the people who are most likely to be the ones doing it.
They see people around them fail to think critically, they criticize them for that, and then turn around and never question their own opinions. Because "obviously I am right".
Not accusing you of it, but I'm sure a lot of people reading this fall into that category. Maybe we all do.
You are right i always try to think in all ways but maybe i am biased? It's just that during my school life i was never bullied but rather it was my classmates badmouthing my family, me, shaming my body, or insulting me so that the entire class would know etc. The attitude of people just randomly changes if you open up too much to them or be too friendly they don't respect your boundaries. I just don't know anymore i talk to people but i never try to get too close to them. I feel like i have changed in just these recent 6 months
You might have something there. I know it works the other way. I was going to post that most of the people I know just come out and say when they know they’ve been wrong. It stops it being a big thing. Admitting you’re wrong or you made a mistake takes all the embarrassment out of it because you now own the situation.
Vanity. It's the Devil's favourite sin.
Insecurity. People are afraid of being perceived as weak and don’t have the emotional maturity to work through it. They can’t see that it’s a sign of confidence and strength to be able to do so.
This. The only real answer.
Because I'm not! I'm not I'm not I'm not!
More seriously, we tend to make it a Great Big Thing when people are wrong. If we acknowledge it and move on, and let them do the same, I'm sure admitting when we're wrong would be much less painful.
Even though I believe I’m right, there’s always a possibility of being wrong. Learning to live with this realization hasn’t been easy since I really like being right and hate being wrong. I suppose lots of other people feel the same way.
No matter how hard I try, I am still wrong about a bunch of stuff, so it’s good to come to terms with this reality of life. Accepting it is easier than trying to fight against the inevitable. Once you realize you’re wrong, acknowledge your mistake, fix it, and move on.
Truth is a difficult place to get there and the farther you stray from it the harder it is to get to. This is why those who lie intentionally eventually find themselves not living in reality. IE our worst politicians.
Because it's easier than admitting it
There's also the possibility of competing interests. There's no "wrong" answer, but people will argue certain facts to persuade others to take their position. This is called "politics."
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because me. me tho
meeeeeee
Saw a novelty license plate recently that read "It's all about ME!". It's an epidemic.
Me, myself and I.
Because then you will lose yourself. If done properly you will become a new person. Meditation helps to achieve this only.
Because most people have their own idea of what is morally right in the world, and they want to cling onto that regardless of what other perspectives may exist. Both sides do this.
Also, in some cases, speaking the truth about something leads to them losing their jobs or livelihoods.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” - Upton Sinclair
Sometimes an idea is so engraved in their heads that they cannot believe otherwise. Also, some people don't like to fact-check. They may hear a "fact" which is popular but is totally false, and they will never change their minds about it.
In my experience, with most people, his typically goes away as they get older. You eventually hit a point where people's impressions of you dont matter anymore and it becomes much easier to freely admit you're wrong.
Of course, there are people that never grow out of it, and that is often read as confidence. There is a reason that "fake it until you make it" works.
I am 18 currently and I have pretty much stopped caring about what others think of me. It just feels as if wasting any more energy speaking to them would be useless. But when I don't defend myself people start verbally abusing me etc. I just don't know what to do in situations like these
what to do ... people start verbally abusing me
When I was 18, I started hangin out with a different crowd. ADULTS (of any age). If I was wrong, they'd explain why nicely. And vice versa. Learned a lot.
There's also the possibility of competing interests. There's no "wrong" answer, but people will argue certain facts to persuade others to take their position. This is called "politics."
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Same here. I don't call myself a truth seeker because I already know the truth, I call myself a truth seeker because I'm a truth seeker, but I get a more premeditated/artificial vibe from other people. Is it that people forget that leading thinkers actually embraced change? A lot of political theorists, one might say including Karl Marx, are said to have died with different ideas than when they began.
On the opposite end of things, I also get a disapproving reaction when I mention this. I remember long ago I made a fake game picture of a "Pokémon trainer" version of me declaring defeat, which was supposed to be put at the end of discussions to signify I considered myself schooled, and people reacted accusing me of "excess pomp" to quote one person.
religion exists because people are scared of admitting the thing they devoted their life too is fake and used to exploit you.
it only causes war, inequality, hate crimes, etc
positives from religion? you get the hope that you might go to heaven and do nothing forever (seriously whats your plan after heaven). OR you burn in hell if you make a mistake. oh and you get a specific yet contradictory moral compass to abide to except its interpreted to hate gays instead of pedophiles.
i hate religion, but i think religion should get the treatment the religious right give to the lgbt. religion should NEVER be acknowledged or practiced outside of personal closed doors. i never want to hear about it and it shouldnt influence anything ever. the different between lgbt and christians? christianity is a choice.
I suppose the positions you are describing are not reached by reasoning, rather by being part of a group, religion or ideology. In those cases it’s quite clear that they can’t give up the position unless they weaken their ties to that group/religion/ideology, or abandon it entirely.
Some times in their life people are open to big changes, but most of the time not.