17 checked facts

Belief

Everything on this site about belief — each one naming the study behind it.

You feel an unconscious pressure to justify social fairness.
People consistently defend the legitimacy of the status quo to maintain psychological stability and a sense of control…
You are remarkably good at ignoring what you do not want to see.
Selective perception allows individuals to interpret ambiguous actions differently to align with partisan interests, a…
You trust information more if it is presented clearly.
A 1999 study by Reber and Schwarz showed that cognitive fluency influences truth judgments.…
You struggle to change your mind even when presented with new facts.
A 2015 study found that repeated exposure to false claims makes them seem true, even when they contradict existing kno…
You ignore information that disagrees with your prior beliefs.
The disconfirmation bias leads you to spend more cognitive effort scrutinizing and attacking evidence that contradicts…
You repeat a lie until it sounds like truth.
The illusory truth effect shows that repeated statements are judged as more likely to be true than non-repeated statem…
You twist evidence to support a chosen path.
The study titled 'Biased interpretation of evidence' by Carlson and Russo, which demonstrates how people distort new i…
You scan the world for what you expect.
A 1979 study found that people perceive ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing beliefs while ignoring contrad…
You rewrite your values to justify actions you already took.
Festinger's theory posits that when behavior conflicts with beliefs, individuals are motivated to reduce the resulting…
Disconfirming evidence can strengthen your initial incorrect belief.
The 'backfire effect' was proposed in 2010 to describe people doubling down on beliefs, but subsequent large-scale res…
Your brain actively ignores evidence that contradicts your view.
Confirmation bias involves selectively processing information to support existing beliefs.…
You filter reality to fit what you already know.
Humans systematically favor information that confirms their existing beliefs.…
You accept generic personality descriptions as uniquely accurate.
In a 1949 study, students completed a personality test and were given a feedback report, which was identical for all p…
You filter out information that challenges your beliefs.
A 1979 study found that when shown opposing studies on capital punishment, people rated evidence confirming their view…
You hold onto opinions even after being disproven.
A 1975 study showed that once an initial belief is formed, it remains influential even after the evidence supporting i…
Your brain ignores facts that contradict your beliefs.
Motivated reasoning and biased assimilation lead people to evaluate contradictory evidence more critically than suppor…
Repetition bypasses our ability to spot lies.
A 2015 study showed that repeating a false statement increases its perceived credibility, even when participants alrea…