An “aha” moment can make an accompanying belief seem more truthful.

The desire for certainty can make us less receptive to alternative explanations.

Uncertainty can intensify both unpleasant and pleasant emotional experiences.

An explanation can provide psychological value without providing evidence that it is true.

What I love about psychology is how it presents itself in the everyday experiences we all have. Here’s a little example from me this week that got me thinking about the relationship between feeling and knowing.

As coffee lovers, my partner and I recently purchased a new coffee machine with two independent elements: a filter with a hot plate, and a pod dispenser. Last week, I made a travel-mug quantity of coffee into the jug. My partner then prepared her usual latte using the pod dispenser. When I returned for a second cup, I noticed the hot plate was off. I instantly assumed that using the pod side must switch off the hot plate. This happened again, which strengthened my confidence sufficiently that I told my partner that this was how the machine worked and that she needed to switch the hot plate back on.

The following day, I noticed that preparing a quantity of coffee sufficient for a travel mug didn’t activate the hot plate. So it wasn’t that the two parts of the machine were autonomous; rather, the key variable was the quantity of coffee selected: travel mug quantities don’t activate the hot plate.

My plausible explanation had mutated to established fact before it had even been tested. I had inferred a causal relationship without sufficient actual evidence to support this idea.

When the Stakes Are Higher

This got me thinking about how often we make an observation, infer some meaning or cause, seek confirmation, then develop a degree of confidence in our assumption and communicate this idea to someone else, solidifying it even more.

While this is of little consequence for my coffee machine experience, when we consider examples in life that are more emotionally provoking and relate to health, work, relationships, and our sense of identity, the stakes are somewhat higher.

As I thought about this a little more, it seemed apparent that we frequently assign an immediate explanation to experiences. A difficult relationship could be seen as an attachment problem. Someone behaving in a........

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