What is naive realism in psychology

The world we perceive is different from the real world. It is as if we were constantly looking at it through lenses that distort its shapes and proportions, modifying some aspects or distorting and erasing others. And we don't even realize it!

We are always convinced that we are right in matters such as sports, religion, politics or even in the management of Covid-19, instead, we always use lenses through which we look at the reality. In short, we believe that the world is as we see it, the basic idea of ​​naive realism. In this Psychology-Online article, we will tell you what is naive realism in psychology.

Index

1. What is naive realism
2. Precursors of naive realism
3. Characteristics of naive realism
4. Examples of naive realism

The term, as it is used today in psychology, was coined by social psychologist Lee Ross and his colleagues in the 1990s. Specifically, naive realism is an epistemological attitude according to which mental representations are the faithful and objective reproduction of the external world.

In this sense, naive realism in social psychology is the human tendency to believe that we see the world around us objectively and that people who disagree with us are uninformed, irrational, or prejudiced. This phenomenon causes people to exaggerate the differences between themselves and others.

Psychologists believe that naive realism can trigger and aggravate conflicts, as well as creating barriers to negotiation through different mechanisms. In fact, naive realism provides a theoretical basis for many other cognitive biases, that is, systematic errors that occur when thinking and making decisions. These include the effect of false consent and fundamental attribution error.

Naive realism follows a subjectivist tradition in modern social psychology that has its roots in one of the founders of the field, Kurt Lewis. From the 1920s to the 1940s, Lewin developed an approach to the study of human behavior that he called field theory, which proposes that a person's behavior is a function of the person and the environment.

During this period, subjectivist ideas spread to other areas of psychology as well. For example, him developmental psychologist Jean Piaget, argued that infants see the world through an egocentric lens and have difficulty separating their beliefs from those of others.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the early pioneers of social psychology applied the subjectivist view to the field of social perception. Specifically, in 1948, psychologists David Kretch and Richard Krutchfield They argued that people perceive and interpret the world according to their needs, connotations, personality, and previously formed cognitive patterns. Later, the social psychologist, Gustav Ichheiser, delved into this idea by observing how the prejudices of personal perception lead to misunderstandings in social relations.

Furthermore, the social psychologist, Solomon Ash, who grew up in the Gestalt tradition, argued that people disagree with each other because they base their judgments in different concepts or ways of looking, however, they have the illusion that their judgments about the social world are objectives. If you want to understand his theory a little better, don't miss this article on The Asch Experiment: Majority Influence and Conformity.

Lee Ross and fellow psychologist Andrew Ward have outlined three related hypotheses, or principles, which make up naive realism. The authors argue that these assumptions are supported by a long school of thought in social psychology, along with numerous empirical studies. We see them below:

1. People believe that they see the world objectively and without prejudice.
2. They expect others to come to the same conclusions, as long as they are exposed to the same information and interpret it rationally.
3. They assume that those who do not share the same views must be ignorant, irrational, or biased.

When it comes to better understanding what naive realism tells us, there is nothing better than seeing some examples.

Example 1 of naive realism: soccer game

In a seminal study of social psychology, published in a paper in 1954, students at Dartmouth and Princeton watched a video of a football game between the two schools. Although they saw the same movie, fans of both schools perceived the game very differently. Princeton students watched the Dartmouth team foul twice as many on their own team and they also saw the team commit twice as many infractions as the students from Dartmouth.

Instead, Dartmouth students viewed the game as an even mix of violence, of which both sides were guilty. This study revealed that two groups subjectively perceived an event. Each team believed they had viewed the event objectively and that the other side's perception of the event was blinded by bias.

Naive Realism Example 2: "Eat at Joe's" sign

A 1977 study by Ross and his colleagues provided the first evidence of a cognitive bias called the false consent effect. It was defined as the tendency of people to overestimating the extent to which others share the same opinions.

This bias was cited as supporting the first two principles of naive realism. In the study, students were asked if they would wear a sandwich-shaped sign that read "Eat at Joe's" around campus. They were then asked to indicate whether they thought other students would use the sign and what they thought of students who were willing to use it or not.

The researchers found that the students who agreed to use the sign thought most students would use it. Furthermore, they also thought that refusing to use it was more revealing than the personal attributes of their peers. In contrast, the students who refused to use the sign thought that most of the other students would also refuse and that accepting the invitation was more revealing than some traits of personality.

Naive Realism Example 3: Hostile Medium Effect

A phenomenon known as the hostile medium effect shows that people can subjectively view neutral events based on their own needs and values, as well as assuming that those who interpret the event differently are partisan.

In a 1985 study, pro-Israeli and pro-Arab students were asked to witness real news about the massacre of Sabra and Shatila in 1982, a massive slaughter of refugees Palestinians. The researchers found that supporters of both sides perceived media coverage of the event as biased in favor of the opposing point of view. In fact, they believed that those responsible for the news program adhered to the ideological positions of the opposite party.

Example 4 of naive realism: music tapping

Further empirical evidence for naive realism in psychology was provided by the study of tapping musical by psychologist Elizabeth Newton in 1990. For the study, participants were designated as tapper or listener.

To the tappers they were told to tap out the beat of a familiar song, while listeners were asked to try to identify the song. While the tappers they expected listeners to guess the melody about 50% of the time, listeners could only identify it about 2.5% of the time. This provided support for a failure from the perspective of the tappers.

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

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• Amado Gonzalez, M. A. (2013). The nature of perceptual experience: naive realism and disjuntivism. Department of Philosophy.