Admitting you are wrong is very difficult. I've noticed that almost no one can do it. I haven't seen or found any real studies of this behavior. It would be interesting to see how often people are wrong about something objective, why they are wrong, how they do or don't admit being wrong, and if they can change their opinion. Once a person make some declaration, there is some heuristic or bias that makes them cling to that even when they're obviously wrong. Often rather than admitting being wrong people will rationalize some external reason why their declaration is not right. People will actually change their memories to avoid being wrong. It's a powerful effect.

Traders need to be able to quickly admit being wrong and get out. It's one of the keys to successful trading. One needs to be able to reassess.

In expeditions and adventure travel, one needs to be able to change one's plans, admit a mistake, turn around, and give up goals. You need to have fall back plans. These are all techniques to alter one's mind, even if they fall a bit short of admitting one is wrong. I think this approach is a the way to work around the heuristic.

Another problem is the social reinforcement problem. Once a person makes a declaration of say, a trading position, it makes it harder to change. That's one of the reasons why Chair says, don't disclose your position or state your bias. Also, there is the social problem of who in the group wants to say the group is wrong. I'll call this the lemming effect. There is the expert effect, where no one in the group wants to contradict the self proclaimed expert. The effect can be more subtle, such as the first to speak in a group takes on a guru like Auro, making it hard to correct mistakes in a group.

Russ Sears writes: 

Professor Haave has a law which I will paraphrase as "90% of people spend 90% of their time trying to prove that they are not wrong". I would add that most of this wasted effort is spent trying to blame someone else for things that go wrong, rather than simply admitting a bad decision and moving on. I try to be friends with those that can admit a mistake. I would add that this is paramount in picking a mate or a boss. Otherwise I am bound to be blamed for their problems. Besides wasting money on bad investment decisions. Time is wasted and perhaps the biggest cost to personal happiness can be wasted relationships and heart break.

An insight as I've aged is if I truly want to get close to and attach with my spouse, I must be willing to admit to to my spouse that much the lack of feeling attached is because of my insecurities rather than her problems or lack of compassion. It's a paradox that the compassion is only as deep as one allows themselves to admit being vulnerable to the other. 

anonymous writes: 

Ego exposed is certain to be defeated. It is the fastest and easiest way to do it. The resultant facts make the ego indefensible. The ego becomes unimportant to the individual. He or she is liberated of it.

It was the most valuable lesson the Senator ever taught me.



 The Literary Digest was once the microphone through which that mythical beast "public opinion" spoke to America

The mass media - newspapers, movies, radio - were careful not to offer political opinions on the sensible theory that favoring one party over another would cost them money. Political opinion was limited to print and, within print, almost entirely to magazines.

In 1927 the Literary Digest had 1 million subscribers; by 1938 it was gone.

It fascinates me how the formerly mass media are well on their way to becoming the voice of minority opinion because of their one-sided politics.

Zubin Al Genubi writes: 

With 500 TV channels, and a thousand news sites, information and political views have become Balkanized. Will political parties soon follow and breakdown like the parliamentary systems in Europe.

Stefan Jovanovich replies: 

The Parliamentary systems in Europe may have political deadlocks but they are hardly breaking down. Brussels has authority that was Napoleon's dream. There are not 500 channels if by TV you mean mass audiences similar to those held by the 4 networks in the U.S. Britain has 5 channels, France has 3. What I was trying to point out was the obvious. Netflix, Amazon Prime and hulu–none of which offers any political "news" - have become what the movies and radio were in the 1920s and early 1930s. The audience that elite opinion thought it had literally melted away, much as it is doing now. Trump is "unpopular" only if one believes the modern Literary Digest audience represents a clear majority of the American electorate.


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