When Being Right Gets in the Way of Thinking
Most of us like to think we are rational, that we look at the facts, weigh the options and make a sensible decision. That's the theory, anyway.
The problem is that being intelligent doesn't make us better at thinking. Sometimes it just makes us better at explaining why our existing thinking must be right.
This is where cognitive dissonance comes in: the uncomfortable feeling we get when what we believe, what we do and what we experience don't quite fit together. Most of us don't enjoy that feeling, so we do something about it. We change our behaviour, or our opinion, or we reinterpret what happened or, most conveniently, we find a reason why the evidence doesn't really mean what it appears to mean.
None of this has to look irrational. It can look remarkably sensible.
Clever people can be very good at avoiding the obvious
Imagine someone who believes they perform brilliantly under pressure. They're successful, experienced, capable. Yet before an important event they grow anxious, overthink decisions, lose sleep, and dwell on mistakes long after they should have moved on.
There's plenty of evidence here. But accepting that pressure affects their performance doesn't fit the picture they have of themselves, so the brain looks for alternatives: I just care about getting things right. I work better under a deadline. That's just how I am. Everyone gets nervous.
There may be truth in all of these. But they're also convenient. This is one of the curious things about cognitive dissonance: we don't necessarily lie to ourselves; we simply become selective about which parts of reality we pay attention to. And the cleverer we are, the more convincing the explanation sounds.
Intelligence gives us a greater capacity to reason. It doesn't guarantee we'll use that capacity to challenge ourselves. Sometimes we use it to build a better defence.
Social media hasn't exactly helped
We can now surround ourselves with people who think, believe and react exactly as we do. Agreeable posts get a nod. Challenging ones get ignored, argued with, mocked, blocked, or drowned out by ten others who agree with us instead.
There's a subtle but real difference between thinking critically and simply hunting for confirmation. You can see it in the comments. Someone disagrees, and the reply isn't “That's interesting, I hadn't thought of it that way.” It's “You clearly don't understand.” “Do your research.” “That's been debunked.”
Sometimes the other person really is talking nonsense, the internet has no shortage of it. But often the reaction has less to do with the argument's quality and more to do with how uncomfortable it makes us feel. The problem usually isn't that we disagree. It's that we don't like what the disagreement might mean.
When doubling down becomes obvious
Once we've publicly committed to a position, changing our mind gets harder. It's no longer just admitting we might be wrong, but admitting it publicly. That can feel like losing face. So instead of stepping back, we defend more strongly.
Counter-evidence arrives. We dismiss some of it. More appears. We find another explanation. Someone points out a contradiction, we attack the source. Another flaw in our argument surfaces, we move the goalposts. Eventually the defence becomes elaborate and increasingly detached from the original evidence. This is doubling down, and it's fascinating to watch from the outside.
“I think this is probably right” becomes “This is definitely right,” then “Anyone saying otherwise doesn't understand the issue,” and eventually “The fact that there's evidence against it actually proves how much people are trying to hide the truth.”
At that point the person isn't defending the idea anymore. They're defending their decision to have believed it. To an outside observer, they look less interested in whether the position is correct than in finding a way to keep holding it, mistaking stubbornness for strength.
Why does this happen?
Our beliefs get tied to our identity. “I believe this” is one thing; “I am the sort of person who believes this” is another. Now challenging the belief feels like challenging me. If I've defended it publicly, repeatedly, changing my mind can feel like admitting I was foolish. Nobody enjoys that, so the brain finds another way out: it's easier to attack the evidence than to reconsider the belief.
This is why intelligent people sometimes make increasingly poor arguments. Their intelligence hasn't gone anywhere. It's just been recruited to defend a conclusion they're no longer willing to question. The cleverer the person, the more sophisticated the defence. Unfortunate, if it's protecting the wrong thing.
When the obvious becomes inconvenient
This shows up everywhere. A business owner who believes they communicate well may keep finding that people don't flag problems to them. A manager may decide their team lacks initiative, without noticing that every suggestion gets quietly dismantled. A golfer insists the problem is technical, even though the same swing works fine on the practice ground. A sportsman claims not to care about mistakes while spending ten minutes replaying the last one.
The information is there. The problem is that the obvious explanation is uncomfortable. Accepting that my communication style is part of the issue means changing something. Accepting that pressure affects my performance means working on something I can't just hit harder or ignore. Accepting that my behaviour contributes to the problem means giving up the comfort of being entirely right and that's a surprisingly hard thing to give up.
And this is where connection starts to suffer
Being determined to be right makes it harder to connect with people. When someone disagrees, we can get curious about why they see it differently or start preparing our defence. Once we've decided the other person is wrong, biased or “one of those people,” the conversation changes: we stop trying to understand them and start trying to win. Once both people are doing that, very little thinking happens.
We stop listening to the person and start responding to the argument we assume they're making. Listening for weaknesses, waiting for our turn, gathering confirmation. And then we wonder why nobody understands us.
The uncomfortable question
Perhaps the useful question isn't “Am I right?” but “What would I have to see or experience to change my mind?” If the honest answer is “nothing,” we're no longer thinking.
We're defending a position.
This doesn't mean doubting everything we believe; that would be exhausting and impractical. It means noticing when our certainty becomes unusually strong. When someone challenges something that matters to us, do we get curious, or do we start building the case against them? That moment of discomfort is worth noticing. It might mean the other person is wrong or it might mean they've touched the bit of truth we'd rather not look at.
Thinking clearly isn't about always being right
Clear thinking isn't confidence in your decisions. Sometimes it's willingness to question the assumptions underneath them. The golfer needs to recognise when the problem is mental, not technical. The business owner needs to recognise when the problem isn't everyone else. The sportsman needs to recognise when “I don't care” isn't quite true. And all of us need to recognise that our brains are very good at protecting the version of ourselves we'd rather believe.
Being wrong is uncomfortable. Being challenged is uncomfortable. Changing our mind is uncomfortable.
But there's something more useful than being right: being able to think clearly enough to notice when you might not be.
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