Belief perseverance is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. That is the idea that the first impression you have on a particular issue will linger, even after being proven wrong.
When I was nineteen years old, I was spending an afternoon with my friend, Norman, when I accidentally swallowed a piece of gum.
“Oh shit,” Norman exclaimed, with an urgent twinkle in his eyes. “Do you want to go to the hospital?”
“I’m good, man,” I responded, confusedly.
“Well, you should at least throw up,” Norman suggested, scratching his chin.
“What, why?” I asked.
“Well, otherwise it’ll stay in your stomach for seven years!” he replied, already turning me onto my side.
I was taken aback, of course. After all, we were nineteen-year-old men. And he had just informed me of something so unbelievably nonsensical that I did not know how to respond.
After a moment, I informed him that this was, in fact, a myth. A made-up fairy tale parents tell their children, such as the Easter Bunny or overstating Michael Jordan's NBA career. Letting him know that while gum does not break down completely in your digestive system, it will still pass through it at a normal pace.
“I don’t know, man. That’s not what I heard,” Norman replied. “Google it.”
I quickly pulled out my smartphone, opened the browser, and began typing the prompt into my Google search engine when I paused.
Why should I have to prove my side with empirical data? I’m not the one who made the outrageous claim; he was. Therefore, the burden of proof should fall to him, right?
For instance, should I profess that my perineum is a direct prophet of the one true God, Drallux, I should not then respond to any pushback with, “Prove to me that this is not the case.”
The burden of proving the position should be on the individual who made the more outrageous claim.
But this is where the dilemma lies.
You see, after pulling up a research paper published by Duke gastroenterologist Nancy McGreal proving that gum does, in fact, pass through your digestive system, Norman paused, weighing the information heavily.
“I don’t know, Harry,” he said with a furrowed brow. “You should throw up just to be safe.”
To Norman, his belief was not outrageous at all, and it was, in fact, my idea that challenged his fundamental understanding of the universe. Even someone with the expertise of Nancy McGreal acknowledging the blatant falsehood of his belief could not make this man waver.
This interaction with my friend has stuck with me nearly seventy-three years now. And it is because of this that I have an understanding as to why people choose to live their lives the way they do, whether this be a life of crime, racism, anti-racism, religion, anti-religion, establishment, anti-establishment, etc.
You see, from a young age, a person’s neural pathways are shaped by their lived experience, their environment, and the adults around them. While young, our neural pathways are malleable, still being forced to adapt to the ways of the world, but they do not stay that way. They become rigid and stagnant. Once these pathways are firmed, this becomes your fundamental understanding of the world. And when you are inevitably met with something that forces a change in your worldview, your brain offers resistance.
This is why eventually informing your child that the Tooth Fairy’s existence is a falsehood or that they are, in fact, not your biological offspring ultimately shatters the child’s trust in both their parents and the world. Children cannot comprehend these little white lies we tell them.
In that regard, a hard truth is not shattering some outlandish, silly belief; it’s challenging their entire understanding of the cosmos.
