首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
A newspaper cannot publish for 174 years without some mistakes. This one has made its share. We thought Britain was safe in the
A newspaper cannot publish for 174 years without some mistakes. This one has made its share. We thought Britain was safe in the
admin
2018-01-01
61
问题
A newspaper cannot publish for 174 years without some mistakes. This one has made its share. We thought Britain was safe in the European exchange-rate mechanism just weeks before it crashed out; we noted in 1999 that $10 oil might reach $5; and in 2003 we supported the invasion of Iraq. For individuals, like publications, errors are painful—particularly now, when the digital evidence of failure is both accessible and indelible. But they are also inevitable. The trick is to err well: to recognise mistakes and learn from them. Worryingly, humanity may be getting worse at owning up to its goofs.
Few enjoy the feeling of being caught out in an error. But real trouble starts when the desire to avoid a reckoning leads to a refusal to grapple with contrary evidence. Economists often assume that people are rational. Yet years of economic research illuminate the ways in which human cognition veers from rationality. Studies confirm that people frequently disregard information that conflicts with their view of the world. Why should that be? Last year Roland Benabou and Jean Tirole presented a framework for thinking about the problem. In many ways, beliefs are like other goods. People spend time and resources building them, and derive value from them. Some beliefs are like consumption goods. Other beliefs provide value by shaping behaviour. The conviction that one is a good salesman may help generate the confidence needed to close sales.
Because beliefs are not simply tools for making good decisions, but are treasured in their own right, new information that challenges them is unwelcome. People often engage in "motivated reasoning" to manage such challenges. Mr. Benabou classifies this into three categories. "Strategic ignorance" is when a believer avoids information offering conflicting evidence. In "reality denial" troubling evidence is rationalised away: houseprice bulls might conjure up fanciful theories for why prices should behave unusually, and supporters of a disgraced politician might invent conspiracies. And lastly, in "self-signalling", the believer creates his own tools to interpret the facts in the way he wants; an unhealthy person might decide that going for a daily run proves he is well.
Motivated reasoning is a cognitive bias to which better-educated people are especially prone. Not all the errors it leads to are costly. But when biases are shared, danger lurks. Motivated reasoning helps explain why viewpoints polarise even as more information is more easily available than ever before. That it is easy to find convincing demolitions of climate-change myths, for example, has not curbed misinformation on the topic. But the demand for good (or bad) information is uneven. Polling shows, for example, that Democrats with high levels of scientific knowledge are more concerned about climate change than fellow partisans with less scientific background. Even, or especially, sophisticated news consumers look for what they want to find.
Work by Mr. Benabou suggests that groupthink is highest when people within groups face a shared fate: when choosing to break from a group is unlikely to spare an individual the costs of the group’s errors. If a politician’s fortunes rise and fall with his party’s, breaking from groupthink brings little individual benefit (but may impose costs). The incentive to engage in motivated reasoning is high as a result. Even as the facts on a particular issue converge in one direction, parties can still become polarised around belief-sets. That, in turn, can make it harder for a party member to derive any benefit from breaking ranks. Indeed, the group has an incentive to delegitimise independent voices. So the unanimity of views can be hard to escape until it contributes to a crisis.
Lowering the cost of admitting error could help defuse these crises. A new issue of Econ Journal Watch, an online journal, includes a symposium in which prominent economic thinkers are asked to provide their "most regretted statements". Held regularly, such exercises might take the shame out of changing your mind. Yet the symposium also shows how hard it is for scholars to grapple with intellectual regret. Some contributions are candid; Tyler Cowen’s analysis of how and why he underestimated the risk of financial crisis in 2007 is enlightening. But some disappoint, picking out regrets that cast the writer in a flattering light or using the opportunity to shift blame.
Public statements of regret are risky in a rigidly polarised world. Admissions of error both provide propaganda for ideological opponents and annoy fellow-travellers. Some economists used to seethe when members of the guild acknowledged that trade liberalisation could yield costs as well as benefits. In the long run, such self-censorship probably eroded trust in economists’ arguments more than it built support for trade. It is rarely in the interest of those in the right to pretend that they are never wrong.
What does Roland Benabou and Jean Tirole’s research tell us? What is "motivated reasoning" (para.4) ?
选项
答案
to study why people often "disregard information that conflicts with their view of the world" / why human cognition separated from rationality ("veers from rationality") / proposed a framework on the issue / people often rely more on "beliefs" built up by themselves and even derive values from such beliefs / for some people, beliefs have become "consumption goods" / used to make decisions / treasured by those people "in their own right"/ motivated reasoning divided into three categories: strategic ignorance, reality denial and self-signalling, / is a "cognitive bias" / people with better education are prone to such cognition / shared biases could lead to dangers + risks
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/eqSO777K
本试题收录于:
NAETI高级口译笔试题库外语翻译证书(NAETI)分类
0
NAETI高级口译笔试
外语翻译证书(NAETI)
相关试题推荐
我国金融改革的不断深化将为外资银行与中资银行的合作带来新的机遇。银监会鼓励外资银行通过参股中资银行,在业务、客户和市场方面获得突破;同时,在公司治理、内控、风险管理和经营理念方面带来先进的经验和做法,使中、外资银行在合作中共同获得发展。作为深化金
JohnCiardigothismaster’sdegreefromtheUniversityofMichiganin1939andhaspublishedmorethan40poems.
A、hesuffersfromanirrationalcompulsion.B、hetakesgreatpleasureinthethingshebuys.C、heneedsmorenecessitiesinlife
A、BecauseofWal-Mart’splanofbuyingTrust-Mart,millionsmorecustomersisshoppingatWal-Martstores.B、Wal-Martwillconti
Peopleofdifferentfieldscametogetherforthesamedreamofbuildingasmartcity.
Peopleofdifferentfieldscametogetherforthesamedreamofbuildingasmartcity.
作弊极具诱惑,这一点并不奇怪。今日的因特网诱惑重重——有学期论文供出售,还有免费文章共摘抄,你只要鼠标轻轻一点即可。一项调查表明,30%的学生承认常在测试中作弊,另有65%的学生承认,即使教授要求他们独立完成作业,他们也会向朋友求助。我们难以相信这些年轻人
通常我们是从失败中获得智慧的。我们经常通过认识到自己不能做的事情去发现我们的能力/通过发现自己的有所不为而找到自己的有所为,或者(可以说),如果一个人永不犯错,就不可能有任何新的发现。关键词汇:discover:发现;findout:发现,找出。这句话的
OnSaturdaymorningsIworkedinthefamilyshop.IstartedcyclingdowntotheshopwithDadonSaturdayassoonasIwasbige
Likemanyteenagegirls,LeeAnnThillwasobsessedwithherappearance.Adiabetic,shealreadywassufferingfrombulimia—forc
随机试题
A.功能残气量B.肺活量C.肺总量D.深吸气量E.残气量补吸气量+潮气量为
下列哪一项不是小腿筋膜间室
甲公司技术人员丙经过研究,发明了某新产品制造方法,并申请了发明专利。在该产品进入市场后不到一年时间,甲公司发现乙公司也在制造并销售同样的产品。遂将乙公司诉至法院,要求乙公司承担侵权损害赔偿。对本案甲公司和乙公司的产品制造方法是否相同的举证责任承担的表述中,
按照现行资源税的规定,代扣代缴资源税的地点为()。
在建设投资中,工程费用包括()。
党在领导革命和建设过程中形成的若干具有长远指导意义的政策和策略原则有()。
下列关于公司注册资本说法正确的是()。
下列关于运动、变化和发展的说法正确的有()。
IP地址块202.192.33.160/28的子网掩码可写为()。
In1998,aBelgianstudentnamedSachaKleinleftBrusselsandenrolledasafour-yearstudentataU.S.university,graduating
最新回复
(
0
)