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David Pinsof's avatar

I might add one more—not mutually exclusive—reason for naive realism in politics: the conflicting selection pressures between within-group competition for social partners and between-group competition for power and resources. Within groups, we have an incentive to avoid interacting with dishonest, manipulative, unreasonable, simplistic, self-serving, and untrustworthy people. So any signs of these traits triggers social disgust and avoidance. But between groups, we have an incentive to create propaganda that mobilizes the group against rivals, coordinates the group (which requires simpler vs. complex info and categorical vs. continuous info), creates trust and common knowledge that others will commit to the collective action and not chicken out, and reduces the likelihood of defection to rival groups, regardless of truth. There’s a conflict here. We must spread propaganda that we’re not spreading propaganda. We must lie that we’re not lying, bullshit that we’re not bullshitting, manipulate each other into thinking that we’re not manipulating each other, etc. Because if we don’t, we’ll see ourselves as dishonest, irrational, manipulative people, and destroy our desire to associate with one another, unraveling the group from within. So we need naive realism (and other sacred narratives) to stably exist as a competitive group at all. This is similar to your point on action, but fleshes it out a bit more. I write about this in my preprint on social paradoxes. I’m curious if you buy the argument.

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/avh9t

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Arnold Kling's avatar

I think that if you say that a social problem is complex, people will accuse you of not caring enough about the problem. People who espouse naive realism come across as being more caring, so naive realism gets socially rewarded rather than punished. I will say more about this in a post scheduled for 3/22.

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