Columnist Crawford Hollingworth Blind to the truth W hy do we sometimes remain blind to fact in an evidence-driven world? There have always been those who wilfully fail to accept facts, in spite of all the supporting evidence from flat Earthers to habitual smokers. However, the past few years have revealed just how much of a problem this can be when humanity is hit by crises. The climate emergency and the global pandemic have brought home how damaging it can be to society if a minority of people are blind to evidence. Psychologists and behavioural scientists have long been exploring the cognitive and emotional mechanisms by which we are consciously or unconsciously blind to evidence in different situations. Here, we explore findings of new scientific research around three behavioural science concepts perceptual and attentional biases, and shifting baseline syndrome and explain how they work to obstruct our ability to see the truth. Biased attention and perception We process evidence in very skewed ways, often influenced by cognitive biases such as confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, bias blind spots, and identity protective cognition. Our brains automatically identify facts and evidence that are familiar and comfortable, and fit with existing beliefs. Information is simply much easier to absorb and digest if we already sort of know it, than discovering and learning about new information, which takes much more cognitive energy. Even if we do carry out a more systematic review of evidence, material that supports our existing beliefs may stand out more and be more salient. The climate emergency is a good illustration of how these biases can affect our thinking, depending on which side of the argument we sit in terms of accepting that it is happening (or not) and the degree to which we believe it is a political and economic priority. Researchers from the University of British Columbia recently reviewed 44 studies on attentional and perceptual biases of climate change, and found a significant partisan divide. Particularly in the US, climate change has become extremely politicised and polarised; Republicans/conservatives tend to be more sceptical of climate change, whereas Democrats/liberals tend to believe it is happening and see the need to act. This has had many implications for how people attend to and absorb information on the issue. For example, conservatives and liberals focus on different aspects of global temperature curves in eye-tracking experiments, liberals were more drawn to the rising section after 1990, whereas conservatives were focused on the flatter section from 1940-1980; in another experiment, liberals concerned with climate change were more likely to notice climate-related words or images. A study published last year considered whether people might be more likely to be blind to evidence if they believed their beliefs should not change and were quite closed-minded. Gordon Pennycook and his colleagues asked people if they thought beliefs or opinions ought to change according to evidence, assessing to what extent they agreed with statements such as I believe that loyalty to ones ideals and principles is more important than open-mindedness. They found a broad spectrum of open-mindedness indicating that this could explain why some people remain closed off to new evidence. People who were more open-minded and willing to take on board new information were more likely to accept scientific evidence, and more likely to reject religious beliefs, paranormal activity and conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorists are particularly susceptible to perceptual bias, based around a belief that any authority be it government, science bodies or healthcare clinicians is not to be trusted. People who mistrust authority can be sceptical of climate change, lockdowns and vaccines, not because they are blind to it, but because they dont believe anything leaders tell them. One example is found among anti-vaxxers; in the US, where a large contingent of the population has not yet been vaccinated, a survey by Surgo found that as much as 17% of the population is wedded to conspiracy theories around vaccination. At the more conscious end of the attentional spectrum, entrepreneur and writer Margaret Heffernan uses the term wilful blindness to describe situations where we have chosen not to know, sometimes out of fear and sometimes out of a feeling of futility. She says: We cant notice and know everything: the cognitive limits of our brain simply wont let us. That means we have to filter or edit what we take in. So, what we choose to let through and to leave out is crucial. In the context of the climate emergency, wilful blindness may be highly relevant. Faced with the prospect of needing to make dramatic changes to our lifestyles or, in the case of firms, the products and services we offer, its much easier to choose not to look at how 48 Impact ISSUE 36 2022_pp48-49_Crawford.indd 48 08/12/2021 10:18