The Cognitive Psychology of Doubt and Certainty: How Your Brain Shapes Beliefs

Ever had to make a decision and then immediately ask yourself why you did that? Or when you believed something despite having some evidence to the contrary? These are not indications of stubbornness, but rather the brain operating the way that it is designed. All the time, the brain makes judgments, forms beliefs, and determines what to believe, and often humans are not even conscious of them. Cognitive psychology, which is described as the science of the mind and how humans think, remember, reason, and make decisions, provides insight into how one feels certain of some things and not others. This article discusses how the mind works in the state of doubt and certainty, how it operates the short-cut mental program, the importance of memory, anxiety and overconfidence in determining what is true or not. 

How does the brain deal with uncertainty? 

According to psychologist Daniel Kahneman (2011), human brains have two ways of thinking called System 1 and System 2. System 1 is quick, automatic and largely unconscious, and is used to recognise a friend’s face in a crowd or to swerve out of the way of danger before one has even considered it. System 2 is slower, conscious, and uses effort and is what is used when solving a math problem, or carefully considering a significant life choice.

People tend to heavily depend on System 1 most of the time. It is also efficient and generally adequate, but it is also the source of many of the mental shortcuts, or, as they are called, cognitive biases. A cognitive bias is nothing more than a thought pattern that can result in wrong conclusions. They are not character defects; these are innate qualities of the brain that have evolved to make rapid decisions in stressful situations.

One of the most explored biases is the confirmation bias, which is the tendency to seek and accept information that confirms pre-existing beliefs and reject information that contradicts them. So, for instance, if one already thinks a diet is healthy, one will remember and remember the articles that substantiate that opinion and forget the ones that contradict it. Humans are more confident than they ought to be, because the brain is sifting out doubt, a process known as confirmation bias (Nickerson, 1998). 

Another common shortcut is the availability heuristic, which is judging how likely something is based on how easily an example comes to mind. For instance, following a tragic air accident in the news, they are more likely to think that anyone who flies is more likely to crash, even though there is no indication that this is the case from a statistical point of view. The more easily remembered the memory is, the more familiar it appears to be than it actually is (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). 

Memory, Belief and Confidence 

Most people consider memory to be like a video camera or a tape recorder that faithfully captures everything that has happened in the past and can be recalled at will. The reality is quite different, though, based on research. Memory is reconstructive; that is, when it is recalled, it is being created anew from the knowledge that is currently available or what one thinks and feels. (Schacter, 2001) Therefore, two people who witness the same event can have different memories of it, and each of them can be completely sure that they are correct. 

For years, psychologist Elizabeth Loftus has been illustrating how memories can be distorted. The now-famous studies by Loftus and Palmer (1974) illustrated the effects of the wording of questions participants were asked about driving accidents. Participant responses to the question of the speed of cars involved in an accident, for example, differed depending on the word used in the question: smashed, hit, collided, or bumped, even though participants had not actually observed those differences in the accident itself. The implications are significant in the real world, such as evidence given by witnesses in court in a criminal case. 

Confidence in a memory doesn’t always reflect its accuracy. One may be entirely convinced of a thing that he is mistaken about. This is what makes certainty misleading: the lack of correlation between confidence and correctness. 

Over-confidence and knowing what one does not know 

The Dunning-Kruger effect is one of the most well-known findings in cognitive psychology. The Dunning-Kruger effect is a tendency for individuals with poor knowledge or expertise in a particular area to overestimate their competence, whereas those who are highly knowledgeable or skilled usually have a poor grasp of the boundaries of their knowledge or skill. In simple terms, the less one knows, the more confident they may feel. But the more they know, the more aware they will be of how little they know. 

It’s not to say experts always get it right or to say that confidence is always bad, but it does shed light on the ubiquity of overconfidence in everyday life. These may be as simple as someone who has seen a few health-related videos and now believes that they do not need to follow health advice, or a new driver who thinks they are much better at driving than they actually are.

The illusion of explanatory depth is another trait associated with overconfidence. It refers to the sense of how much more one thinks that one knows about how something works than they really do. Most people can describe in detail how a toilet works, how a bicycle works, or how a zipper works. But when you ask them to explain them, you see their confidence waver (Rozenblit & Keil, 2002). 

Read More: Overconfidence vs. Underestimation: The Psychological Trap of the Dunning-Kruger Effect

Anxiety, doubt and the Uncomfortable in-between 

As with many things, excesses can be dangerous, but so can excesses on the other end of the spectrum. When doubts become too much, they can be a mental burden and even a mental block. Persistent worry or fear that disrupts a person’s daily functioning is closely related to the uncertainty process and is called anxiety. Intolerance of uncertainty  (Dugas et al., 2004) is another characteristic shared by people who struggle with anxiety and can be very difficult to tolerate uncertainty. 

Scientists have a small region in the brain known as the amygdala. It is a small almond-shaped area and is the equivalent of an internal alarm system. The amygdala is activated when people are uncertain or threatened, and it gets the body ready for a response. For most, this subsides when it is settled. For those whose anxiety disorders make them intensely aware of risk in the absence of actual risk. It can be difficult to feel certain when it comes to anxiety.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is an interesting case in point. Someone with  OCD might feel a lot of uncertainty even when logic says that one is fine. The uncertainty is not a matter of choice; it is as if it were the right thing, and the need is inescapable. This has been demonstrated to be correlated with differences in brain signals resolving uncertainty and signals associated with how the brain works (Rotge et al., 2008).

Critical thinking provides a healthy middle ground. It involves questioning, examining evidence, and considering other perspectives. Research demonstrates that those who engage in critical thinking are more capable of withstanding misinformation and making informed judgments in ambiguous scenarios (Halpern, 2014).

Conclusion

The psychology of doubt and certainty holds a lesson for us that is humbling. Our brains are not always right. They are created to keep us functioning rapidly and efficiently. This means they all have blind spots, biases and memories that are not quite as accurate as they believe. This is not to say it’s something to be sad about, only that it’s the first step toward clearer thinking.

If we learn to recognise how confirmation bias is the filter through which we see the world, and how the Dunning-Kruger effect is the lens through which we know we are right, and how anxiety can make uncertainty feel like too much, we can relate to our own thinking with a bit more patience and curiosity. It’s not about removing doubt; it’s about holding doubt and holding it with both hands.

References +

• Dugas, M. J., Buhr, K., & Ladouceur, R. (2004). The role of intolerance of uncertainty in the aetiology and maintenance of generalised anxiety disorder.  
• In R. G. Heimberg, C. L. Turk, & D. S. Mennin (Eds.), Generalised anxiety disorder:  Advances in research and practice. Guilford Press. 
• Halpern, D. F. (2014). Thought and knowledge: An introduction to critical thinking  (5th ed.). Psychology Press. 
• Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 
• Kruger, J., & Dunning, D. (1999). Unskilled and unaware of it: How difficulties in recognising one’s own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022- 3514.77.6.1121 
• Loftus, E. F., & Palmer, J. C. (1974). Reconstruction of automobile destruction:  An example of the interaction between language and memory. Journal of Verbal  Learning and Verbal Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0022-5371(74)80011-3
•  Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089- 2680.2.2.175 
• Rotge, J. Y., Guehl, D., Dilharreguy, B., Cuny, E., Tignol, J., Bioulac, B., Allard,  M., Burbaud, P., & Aouizerate, B. (2008). Provocation of obsessive-compulsive symptoms: A quantitative voxel-based meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies. PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18787662/ 
• Rozenblit, L., & Keil, F. (2002). The misunderstood limits of folk science: An illusion of explanatory depth. Cognitive Science. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15516709cog2605_1
• Schacter, D. L. (2001). The seven sins of memory: How the mind forgets and remembers. Houghton Mifflin. 
• Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124