Considering this is coming out just days after Thanksgiving - a day notorious for spurring uncomfortable, wine-and-turkey-fueled family debates - you’re probably going to leave here thinking “Well, it would have been nice to have known that on Thursday!”
And for that, I apologize.
But today we’re going to discuss one of the most useful tactics in the psychological repertoire for reducing extremist opinions and encouraging moderation.
To do so, first, we’re going to begin with a bit of an odd question: do you know how a zipper works? What about a combination lock? Or a toilet?
If you’re like the majority of participants polled, the answer is probably a fairly confident “yes” to each of these. But here comes the challenge: can you explain how?
This is the task Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil posed to participants when they conducted the first of these studies back in the early 2000s. And they didn’t let them get away with some vague, half-hearted explanation - they pressed them on articulating the specifics of each of these processes. How do the zippers teeth interlock? How do the pins inside the lock move? How does the water empty out of the tank?
When forced to describe the mechanics of these devices in great detail, something interesting happened: the majority of participants ended up having to admit that, upon reflection, they really didn’t know how these things worked the way they originally thought they did.
Psychologists came to call this phenomenon “the illusion of explanatory depth.”
Basically, humans have a tendency to conflate a sense of familiarity with true understanding. When we’re asked whether we know how things like toilets or zippers work, we think to ourselves “Well, sure, I use those all the time!” But much of what feels like knowledge is really more aptly described as just a feeling of know-ing; a sense coherence which we mistake for comprehension. But when we’re pressured to explain these things in detail, we’re forced to confront the (sometimes many) gaps in our understanding. This causes our confidence to drop and our “intellectual humility” - a recognition that we may not know everything quite as well as we once believed - to rise.
And this is the key reason why the usefulness of the illusion of explanatory depth goes far beyond toilets and zippers.
In a 2013 study, Philip Fernbach, Todd Rogers, Craig Fox, and Steven Sloman asked participants to provide their opinions on complex sociopolitical policies (think things like cap-and-trade, progressive taxation, welfare reform, etc.) while also rating their level of understanding. Initially, participants expressed strong, polarized opinions on these issues with high confidence that they understood them. But then came the catch: they had to explain how these policies work, tracing the causal chain from implementation to outcome.
The results were powerful. In short, participants’ confidence in their stances collapsed as they came to understand that they couldn’t sufficiently describe the cause-and-effect mechanisms that characterized these policies, and thus could justify the strength or rigidity of their positions. Thus realization brought moderation: “How can I hold such strong views on a topic I can now see I really don’t understand all that well?” Consequently, those who began with extreme views tended to become more moderate, moving toward the center as their newfound humility softened their once-unwavering convictions.
When discussing these findings, I’ve heard people say things like “they just had to be shown how stupid they really are.” And while I understand the sentiment, I think a more appropriate description is that being forced to explain these policies (and, consequently, to confront the limitations of one’s understanding) ultimately made people wiser. They began to realize what they do and, critically, do not know. This cognitive friction depletes one’s dogmatism and opens space for conversation and nuance.
There are two key ways you can begin to leverage the illusion of explanatory depth to reduce extremism/rigidity and encourage greater moderation within a conversation.
1. Move from “why” questions to “how” questions: If you were to ask someone “why the economy is so good/bad,” chances are you'll receive a canned response; something they've convinced themselves (or have been convinced by their group) is the case. "Well, it's because of the president!" or "It's the tax situation!" These responses are generally not based on deep reflections - they're more things people "believe" to be the case (often because their group says so) rather than something they've determined to be the case through critical examination.
But in the right environment (i.e., one where the other person doesn't feel threatened or like they need to "defend" their position - more on this below), a "how" question can be an incredibly powerful way to invite critical reflection. For instance, try asking instead (in a sincere, non-holier-than-thou way) "How does the economy grow and decline?" Here, rather than a canned response, these types of questions require a deeper explanation, including things like identifying mechanisms of change through patterns of cause-and-effect. It's complicated, messy, and usually gets people to recognize that it might not be as simple as "the president is making the economy good/bad!"
2. If you want humility on the back-end, you need to demonstrate it on the front-end: Here’s the big problem with arguments: what’s at stake is not just the facts, it’s one’s pride, confidence, and self-esteem. People believe that if they don’t “win,” then they’ll suffer for it socially (e.g., by being ridiculed or shamed for having a “stupid” opinion, etc.). This creates a situation where people won’t even consider admitting that they’re wrong (even if they start to see flaws in their logic) because they worry about the reputational consequences of doing so. This type of “zero-sum” interaction (where one must lose for another to win) creates a situation where both parties will refuse to budge due to ego.
This is where the importance of approach comes in. The magic of “how” questions (as described above) can only be realized if you ask them in the right way. If you’re in the midst of a heated debate and you sarcastically say “alright, moron, if you’re so damn smart then how does the economy work?!” don’t be surprised if they don’t budge an inch (even if they can’t generate a coherent answer). You’re created a situation where to admit ignorance would be to “lose” in a very degrading way. But if instead, someone makes a claim about the president “making” the economy good/bad and you reply (in a sincere, non-confrontational way) “Interesting. I guess I don’t really know enough about how an economy improves or declines. What contributes to it?” you show humility, which signals to that individual that they can show humility, too (e.g., by admitting, after a bit of probing, that maybe they don’t understand it that well, either) without being at social risk; they can “let their guard down” and admit to gaps without fear of reputational damage.