3 ms·

> The researchers mostly demonstrated that if you lie to people, you can confuse them. Pretty sure it was more detailed than that. > They need an experimental

• Animats 2y ago
  Because, having been lied to once, people will assume that it's likely that they are still being lied to.
  • rmunn 2y ago
    This is the biggest flaw in the New Yorker article. It assumes that the rational thing to do, upon being told you'd been lied to, is to re-evaluate your assumptions while assuming that THIS time the researchers are telling you the truth. When in fact, it's far more rational, when you discover that someone has lied to you, to start mistrusting ANY information from that source. Including the statement, "I lied earlier, here's what's really going on." So even though the participants had no basis for persisting in their belief that they'd done well or poorly, they also had no basis for changing their belief. Because why would you trust the word of an admitted liar? And so, in the absence of any reason to change their previously-formed assumptions, they persisted in them. The New Yorker article thinks that that is irrational, but for that to be irrational, you have to assume that taking the word of a known liar is rational behavior. I, for one, don't agree with that premise.