Colleen Seifert reported in the Journal of Experimental Psychology the results of a series of experiments in which subjects read messages about a warehouse fire. For subjects reading messages mentioning that the fire started near a closet containing paint cans and pressurized gas cylinders, that information (predictably) encouraged them to infer a connection.
When, five messages later, subjects received a correction that the closet was empty, they still answered questions about the fire by blaming burning paint for toxic fumes and citing negligence for keeping flammable objects nearby. (This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone recognizing the futility of issuing a retraction after reporting a news story with a factual error.) Truthseeking, the desire to know the truth regardless of whether the truth aligns with the beliefs we currently hold, is not naturally supported by the way we process information. We might think of ourselves as open- minded and capable of updating our beliefs based on new information, but the research conclusively shows otherwise. Instead of altering our beliefs to fit new information, we do the opposite, altering our interpretation of that information to fit our beliefs.
“They saw a game”
As a college football season is about to close, all eyes are fixed on a fierce rivalry. The favorite, playing at home, has a twenty-two-game winning streak and is on the verge of completing a second consecutive undefeated season. The most emotional reception will be for Dick Kazmaier, the offensive star. One of the school’s all-time athletic heroes, he made the cover of Time and is in contention for All-American and other postseason honors. The visitors, however, have no intention of going down to defeat quietly. Although their record this season has been only average, they have a reputation for playing hard. Pulling off a stunning upset would be an unexpected treat.
Welcome to Princeton’s Palmer Stadium, November 23, 1951. The Dartmouth-Princeton football game became famous: part of a historic rivalry, the end of an epoch in Ivy League sports, and the subject of a groundbreaking scientific experiment.
First, the game. Princeton won, 13–0. The outcome was not in much doubt, but it was nevertheless a dirty, violent, penalty-laden game.
Dartmouth received seventy yards in penalties, Princeton twenty-five. A fallen Princeton player got kicked in the ribs. One Dartmouth player broke a leg, and a second also suffered a leg injury. Kazmaier exited the game in the second quarter with a concussion and a broken nose. (He returned for the final play, earning a victory lap on his teammates’ shoulders. A few months later he became the last player from the Ivy League to win the Heisman Trophy.) Surprised by the ferocity of the editorials in both schools’ newspapers after the game, a pair of psychology professors saw the occasion as an opportunity to study how beliefs can radically alter the way we process a common experience. Albert Hastorf of Dartmouth and Hadley Cantril of Princeton collected the newspaper stories, obtained a copy of the game film, showed it to groups of students from their schools, and had them complete questionnaires counting and characterizing the infractions on both sides.
Their 1954 paper, “They Saw a Game,” could have been called “They Saw Two Games” because students from each school, based on their questionnaires and accounts, seemed to be watching different games.
Hastorf and Cantril collected anecdotal evidence of this in the lively accounts and editorials of the Dartmouth-Princeton game in local newspapers. The Daily Princetonian said, “Both teams were guilty but the blame must be laid primarily on Dartmouth’s doorstep.” The Princeton Alumni Weekly called out Dartmouth for a late hit on the play that ended Kazmaier’s college career and for kicking a prone Princeton player in the ribs. Meanwhile, an editorial in the Dartmouth placed heavy blame on Princeton coach Charley Caldwell. After the injury to the “Princeton idol,”
“Caldwell instilled the old see-what-they-did-go-get-them attitude into his players. His talk got results,” the editorial asserted, referring to the pair of Dartmouth players suffering leg injuries in the third quarter. In the next issue of the Dartmouth, the paper listed star players from the opposing team that Princeton had stopped by a similar “concentrated effort.”
When the researchers showed groups of students the film of the game and asked them to fill out the questionnaires, the same difference of opinion about what they had seen appeared. Princeton students saw Dartmouth commit twice as many flagrant penalties and three times the mild penalties