Morally offensive scientific findings activate cognitive chicanery

Area of Science:

• Psychology
• Cognitive Science
• Sociology

Background:

• Motivated cognition influences belief formation and maintenance.
• Individuals may employ cognitive strategies to protect existing belief systems from contradictory information.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate belief-system defenses that transform "morally wrong" scientific claims into "empirically wrong" claims.
• To identify specific cognitive strategies used to dismiss undesirable scientific findings.

Main Methods:

• Five experiments involving 7040 participants were conducted.
• Participants evaluated identical scientific abstracts that varied in sociomoral desirability.
• Data collected on dismissive strategies, including motivated confusion and motivated postmodernism.

Main Results:

• Morally offended participants were more likely to dismiss claims as incomprehensible or deny their empirical status.
• Participants endorsed strategies to neutralize disturbing knowledge, such as criticizing sample sizes and researcher intelligence.
• A combination of contradictory complaints was used to reject findings, termed "belief-system overkill".

Conclusions:

• Motivated cognition employs "cognitive chicanery" to defend belief systems against unwelcome scientific discoveries.
• These belief-system defenses serve to minimize the need for belief updating.
• The deployment of these strategies may undermine the objective pursuit of knowledge.