Are You the Sort of Person Who Uses Soft Evidence to Help You to Peddle Wishful Thinking by Calling It Truth?

Question

Only when I have enough hard evidence do I ever consider drawing conclusions that might fit the facts.
And then whenever new hard evidence turns up I reconsider everything and revise every conclusion that I have if necessary.
But it strikes me very clearly that many people do something very different.
These people latch on to what sounds like a "good idea" or they latch on to a "good idea" with the expectation of getting something that they are telling themselves they badly need, and then they start looking for evidence for the purposes of fending off critical attacks, but all they can come up with is soft evidence. The final twist in the tale is that they then use the same technique of justifying wishful thinking with soft arguments to convince themselves that their soft arguments are actually hard arguments when this is not true.
These people are so good at what they do that they can keep up the soft justification game for ever without even noticing what they are doing.

Answer 1

I certainly lie to myself sometimes. I bet you do too. Very few people have perfect finances or perfect relationships; and the basic reason is self-deception. Even people who pride themselves on always looking at the hard evidence can lie to themselves through cognitive bias, framing, analysis paralysis and so on. You can look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases for some examples -- confirmation bias is one that is very popular with people who claim to always look at "just the facts". When you say evidence "turns up", that doesn't imply that you were actively seeking disconfirmation.

On the other hand, if you are a Nigerian con-man trying to get Christians to part with money, it is good to know about some of the ways that people can "soft sell" greed to themselves and make it look like altruism.

Answer 2

NICELY SAID!!! Imo, this is a HUGH problem in America. I do not know much about the rest of the world. This type of thinking is destroying life. Apathy and denial seal their fate. I am glad I am aware of this type of thinking and that I have the ability to combat it. There are SO many people like this and they are so blind to it. Frustrates the **** out of me. But at least I am no longer one of them. Thanks for posting and making my day.

Answer 3

Yes.