Wishful Thinking vs. Cynical Thinking: Which is Better?

Let’s first start by defining Wishful vs. Cynical Thinking.

Wishful Thinking (according to Wikipedia) is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing to evidence, rationality or reality.

Cynical Thinking (which is NOT the same thing as Critical Thinking) is thinking that is predisposed to doubt and lack of trust.  Cynical Thinkers have a pessimstic view when problem solving and decision making.

The idea of Wishful vs. Cynical Thinking came to mind for me this week when a friend told me he thinks he has a coin worth $35,000.  This particular person is not a collector and typically does not own things of value, and to be quite honest, my Cynical Thinking kicked in immediately.

1. If you “think” you have a coin worth $35,000 and yet you’re just scraping by with your bills, wouldn’t you run to a coin appraiser and sell it immediately?
2. What does this individual even know about coins that would make him think it’s worth $35k?
3. Just because this kind of coin was once sold at auction for $35k doesn’t mean that’s what his coin is worth.  After all, his version isn’t even in the original packaging, so it would be down-graded in its current condition.
4. I’ll bet it’s a fake.
5. People like “us” don’t experience miracles like this.

So after I asked him several questions he showed me the coin and I really saw the stark difference between a Wishful Thinker and my Cynical Thinking.  He told me the history of how the “Sacagawea Dollar 2000 P” came into circulation.  Apparently Cheerios ran a marketing campaign that included 5,500 of these previously unreleased Sacagawea dollars in Cheerios boxes.  It is still unknown how this happened, but non-patterned Sacagawea coins were included in this series, which means that they have a very slight design difference from the Sacagawea Dollars currently in circulation.  Translation:  rare + mistake  = valuable.  On top of the fact that these rare coins (now commonly referred to as a “Cheerios Dollar”) were available to unsuspecting cereal eaters, there’s the very real possibility that the individuals lucky enough to receive one of these 5,500 coins had no idea how valuable the coin would be.  Remember, they were still only worth a dollar in 2000.  They were created by the U.S. mint to get people excited about the upcoming release of the coin to the general population.  So, who knows how many people opened the packaging and spent the coin over the past 12 years.

So, back to my original story…after seeing the coin in person and doing some research, I examined the coin for the necessary characteristics.  I found myself looking for ways in which his coin differed from the pictures of the authentic coin.  At the same time, my friend kept telling me about all the ways in which the coin looks similar to the authentic coin.

And there’s the problem…neither Wishful Thinking nor Cynical Thinking is superior.  They’re both flawed by a logical fallacy called “Confirmation Bias.”  Instead of looking at the situation neutrally and only relying on logic and reasoning, we were both predisposed to seeking out information that proved our respective beliefs.

I wanted to prove that the coin was fake, so I paid close attention to the differences in his coin vs. a verified coin.  He wanted to believe he had a $35k coin, so he paid close attention to the similarities between his coin and the verified coin.

When you become influenced by Confirmation Bias, you stop paying attention to anything that could disprove your belief/hypothesis, and that is a major error.  That is NOT critical thinking.  So, in the end, it doesn’t matter if you’re a Wishful Thinker or Cynical Thinker because, by their very nature, the thinking is flawed from the start.

What examples of Confirmation Bias have you seen recently?