An Experimental Paradigm for the Study of Conceptual Conservatism and Change

Abstract

Although we are indisputably capable of changing our beliefs, everyday experience suggests that such changes are hard to make: we often cling to old and familiar conceptions of reality, disregarding or explaining away contradictory evidence. This report presents a new experimental paradigm for the study of this critically important human attribute. Preliminary qualitative observations indicate that conceptual conservatism can be directly explored in a controlled laboratory setting, that it plays a more critical role in human affairs than has been hitherto supposed, and that it is traceable in part to the cognitive difficulty of replacing one belief with another.