People can be led to second-guess themselves when information presented to them differs slightly, in conceivable ways, from their expectations or beliefs. It’s straight-forward to state that the likelihood of second-guessing one’s self grows with the region of overlap between what one had held to be true and the new information.* And for anyone doubting the acrobatic aptitude of this social construct, witness the following 180 flip-flop: by extension of the previous statement characterizing the relationship between overlap and self-doubt, one would surmise that it is when new information is in perfect focus with previously held beliefs that the potential for questioning the accuracy of one aspect or another is at its greatest, yet we know the opposite to be true; new information that agrees in every way with pre-conceived notions reaffirms these notions. Indeed, “Objection! I fucking hate when people use that word!” carry on… Indeed, by definition of being in perfect focus, even between minor details there can exist no discrepancies to question.
What is less obvious is that the region of overlap need not be inversely proportional to the degree of variance between expectations/beliefs and new information. What I mean by this can best be explained with a couple examples.
1. At a train station, where the series of arrivals and departures comprising one hour’s time is quite possibly repeated identically (on printed schedule, at least) throughout the day, a traveler expecting to barely catch the Southbound Express at 1:10 may be more likely to second-guess their belief of the current time if the station clock displays 2:09 than if it declares the time as 1:34; this, even though the difference, in minutes, between expectation and new information, regarding the current time, is greater in the 2:09 case. Thus, here the region of overlap is greatest (increased likelihood of self-doubt) when the degree of variance (difference in minutes) is also greatest.
2. A cross-country-driving couple expecting to make a rest stop at the next town, which one of them remembers reading, when planning the trip, is 15 miles from their current location, are more likely to doubt their dashboard GPS than themselves if it reports the actual distance as 42 miles than if it says 51 miles. Here again, the region of overlap is greatest when the degree of variance (difference in miles) is also greatest.
Note: In both of these examples, the source of the two hypothetical cases of new information is the same (station clock and GPS). If one were to complicate matters through the introduction of an additional source of new information, by, for instance, supposing that the 42 mile figure was offered by a helpful gas station clerk, any further analysis becomes highly speculative.
*Information that conflicts significantly with a person’s expectations or beliefs is more likely to have its legitimacy questioned than to affect change in opinion.