Have you ever felt so convinced you were right about something, that the thought of anyone challenging your belief could only mean they didn’t know as much as you did? If you have, you’re not alone. Here’s why, you may dig in your heels during heated debates , according to a new study published Wednesday in the journal PLOS ONE: You don’t have all the facts, but believe that you do. “Most people on average do this,” study co-author Angus Fletcher, a professor of English at Ohio State University, tells Fortune .
Just half the facts, ma’am In the study, 1,261 adults were split into three groups to read an article about a fictional school that lacked adequate water . One group read an article that only gave reasons why the school should merge with another that had adequate water; the second group’s article only gave reasons for staying separate and hoping for other solutions. The third control group read all the arguments for the schools merging and for staying separate.
Fletcher’s findings showed that the two groups who received only half the facts—either just the pro-merging or the just the anti-merging arguments—believed they had enough information to make a good decision. He calls this phenomenon the “illusion of information adequacy,” where people rarely pause to think about what info they might be missing, and instead confidently assume the facts they do have are adequate enough to fully understand the situation. What surprised Fletcher the most, .