When presented with information people tend to assume that the information is complete. They deem themselves qualified to make a decision on the topic and assume other people would decide the same. Psychologists observed this behaviour and termed it 'illusion of information adequacy'. In a social context this is a cause for many conflicts, which could be avoided by some humility. More than 2000 years ago the greek philosopher Socrates already knew that he knew nothing.
Interesting.
But this leads to a fairly deep question...
  • The researcher is able to judge who has complete information and who doesn't, and also who makes a better decision and who makes a worse one.
  • In reality, we don't know what we don't know, and the researchers don't know what we don't know, and they don't know what they don't know. In the end, everyone makes choices based on the information they have. Who is to say any of that is suboptimal unless someone has access to the complete information set, which no one does?
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In the study researchers presented the participants with a fictional scenario. The control group received "all" the information (advantages and disadvantages of a decision), two other groups received partial information on the scenario.
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Something that exists a lot nowadays, I think due to the addition of social networks, and that many people have become experts, citing books and thinkers -- which they haven't read, to show intellectual superiority, without at least delving deeper into the topic.
Doubt is always welcome to stay humble
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