From “Love Your Neighbor: How Psychology Can Enliven Faith and Transform Community” by Katherine M. Douglas and Brittany M. Tausen
Now, we want to ask you something. Are you open to the possibility that you might be wrong?
According to psychological science, chances are, you are not open to being wrong. Even though you might actually be wrong. We could not know the chances that you actually are wrong unless we knew your belief and fact-checked it. If you look up a few of the beliefs listed above, you will find that cracking your knuckles does not cause arthritis, goldfish do not have a three-second memory and sugar does not make children hyper. Are you surprised? It’s okay if you go ahead and fact-check us on this.
We share this to illustrate how incredibly rigid our beliefs can be. On matters both small and large, we genuinely have a hard time understanding how two people could be so deeply convinced that they are right while holding completely opposite beliefs. And if this is true with small things like knuckles, goldfish, and sugar, which are relatively inconsequential, think about how much more confusing (and infuriating) it is when the stakes are higher.
The rigidity of our beliefs can divide us from one another, but it is not entirely our fault. Our brains are tricky organs, and they work hard to develop beliefs quickly and hold on to them tightly. This is particularly true when our beliefs are tied to any sort of moral issue, as many of our most tightly held and highly debated ideas are. Whether we are talking about racism, environmentalism, or religious freedom, chances are there is a moral imperative or a moral evaluation (good vs. bad; right vs. wrong) at the root of your belief.
Now, we are not here to talk you out of that belief, whatever it is – that is likely a futile endeavor. We are here to provide some insight into how quickly these beliefs form, how hard they are to change (even if you wanted to), and how that might get in the way of loving others better.