Why we don't live in a post-truth society but rather a myside society: what science tells us
about the bias that poisons our politics. In The Bias That Divides Us psychologist Keith
Stanovich argues provocatively that we don't live in a post-truth society as has been claimed
but rather a myside society. Our problem is not that we are unable to value and respect truth
and facts but that we are unable to agree on commonly accepted truth and facts. We believe
that our side knows the truth. Post-truth? That describes the other side. The inevitable result
is political polarization. Stanovich shows what science can tell us about myside bias: how
common it is how to avoid it and what purposes it serves. Stanovich explains that although
myside bias is ubiquitous it is an outlier among cognitive biases. It is unpredictable.
Intelligence does not inoculate against it and myside bias in one domain is not a good
indicator of bias shown in any other domain. Stanovich argues that because of its outlier
status myside bias creates a true blind spot among the cognitive elite--those who are high in
intelligence executive functioning or other valued psychological dispositions. They may
consider themselves unbiased and purely rational in their thinking but in fact they are just
as biased as everyone else. Stanovich investigates how this bias blind spot contributes to our
current ideologically polarized politics connecting it to another recent trend: the decline of
trust in university research as a disinterested arbiter.
