I’ve thought about this at length and the conclusion I’ve reached is that people tend to lose ‘authority’ when they admit they’re wrong on a subject.
Essentially, once you’ve believed something that was incorrect, your peers will be more skeptical of your beliefs in the future and they can always point back to “remember when you were wrong about x?”
The stronger you’ve held this incorrect belief, the harder it is to admit you were wrong.
If they never admit they were wrong, though, then they never have to deal with humiliation.
Many people would be willing to admit that they’re wrong, however, if the “opposing” side is constantly mockign and ridiculing you, yeah, I can see why people don’t want to admit that.
I wonder what sort of studies have been done on this. I found a few with a quick search about admitting being wrong- IT seems to correlate with humility like you would expect. Also admitting fault also sometimes makes people like you more, contrary to the belief that people will think you suck if you admit fault. Though maybe not for politicians, oddly.
I feel like this is a deep flaw in humanity. That most people would rather continue eating literal shit than admit they were wrong.
I’ve thought about this at length and the conclusion I’ve reached is that people tend to lose ‘authority’ when they admit they’re wrong on a subject.
Essentially, once you’ve believed something that was incorrect, your peers will be more skeptical of your beliefs in the future and they can always point back to “remember when you were wrong about x?”
The stronger you’ve held this incorrect belief, the harder it is to admit you were wrong.
If they never admit they were wrong, though, then they never have to deal with humiliation.
Many people would be willing to admit that they’re wrong, however, if the “opposing” side is constantly mockign and ridiculing you, yeah, I can see why people don’t want to admit that.
I wonder what sort of studies have been done on this. I found a few with a quick search about admitting being wrong- IT seems to correlate with humility like you would expect. Also admitting fault also sometimes makes people like you more, contrary to the belief that people will think you suck if you admit fault. Though maybe not for politicians, oddly.