The Myside Bias

Why other people are not hell (always)

The cognitive psychologist Steven Pinker writes in his book Rationality about the “my-side bias”, something pretty much all people have.

It's the tendency to find it easier to believe those who are seen to be on “our side” or anything that confirms what we are already thinking. This can work to the advantage of any team in a debate, depending on the exact topic of debate of course, but the important insight professor Pinker shares in this book is that whereas we are suckers for the my-side bias, we are very good at pointing out the errors in other people’s reasoning.

“While people often try to get away with lame arguments for their own positions, they are quick to spot fallacies in other people’s arguments.” (Pinker, p. 291).

This points directly to the value of debating. If you put forward a lame, a weak, a logically inconsistent argument in a debate, with opponents whose sole task it is to identify weaknesses in your argument, you will not get away with it. And that is a very good thing, because we ought not to get away with bad arguments.