The false and the furious: We aren’t just bothered by different beliefs – we’re bothered when we think others are wrong
Why do disagreements about vaccines, climate change or elections often feel so personal? Our research suggests it is not simply because other people have different beliefs. It is because we think those beliefs are mistaken.
We are behavioral scientists who study the role of beliefs in politics and everyday life. Our new research finds that people are more disturbed by others’ beliefs when they feel those beliefs are not merely different from their own but are based on incorrect information.
For example, two people may disagree about the ideal level of immigration, but if one believes immigrants commit more crime than U.S.-born residents and the other is convinced the statistics show otherwise, their disagreement becomes a conflict over reality and truth.
That distinction matters because public debate over polarization often starts with a simple idea: People prefer others who think like them – “birds of a feather flock together,” as the saying goes. Social scientists call this belief homophily, and many researchers have studied how these shared beliefs shape friendships, neighborhoods, media habits and political life.
The idea has strong intuitive appeal: People often live near others who share their politics. People also tend to consume news and social media that fit their existing views, a pattern linked to echo chambers and political polarization.
Our research, based on four studies with more than 2,000 U.S. adults, suggests that the story that we and others have formulated is incomplete. People do not react the same way to all disagreements: They are especially bothered when they are convinced that someone is wrong.
Wrong beliefs fuel avoidance
In one study, we asked participants to recall a situation in which another person believed one thing and they believed something else. Some participants described a situation involving different beliefs, while others recalled one with incorrect beliefs. For example, one participant recalled a disagreement about whether couples should live together before marriage, viewing it as a difference in priorities rather than a dispute over reality. By contrast, another participant recalled disagreeing with a friend who believed drinking soda and eating fast food was harmless, a belief the participant considered factually wrong.
Their emotional reactions were dramatically different: Participants who saw the other person’s belief as incorrect reported having felt more disturbed, frustrated and upset than participants who saw the belief as simply different.
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Why false beliefs make people frustrated
Our studies point to several possible reasons for why false beliefs feel so upsetting. One is consequences. False beliefs can often lead to bad decisions. For example, someone’s incorrect beliefs about vaccines or climate change can affect not only us, personally, but also other people we care about, including, in some cases, the person holding the seemingly false belief.
A second possibility is that false beliefs threaten people’s sense of shared reality. People rely on others to make sense of the world. When someone appears to deny what feels obvious or true, the conflict can feel more disturbing than merely having different perspectives.
A third possibility is that people treat false beliefs as signals about the person holding them. When we are convinced that someone is wrong, we may conclude that they are biased or irrational. Psychologists have described this as a sign of naive realism, the belief that we see the world objectively, while those who disagree with us are distorted by bias or self-interest. That kind of judgment can make a false belief feel socially threatening.
