{"id":4002,"date":"2026-03-09T11:15:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-09T11:15:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/law.temple.edu\/aer\/?p=4002"},"modified":"2026-03-09T11:15:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-09T11:15:19","slug":"of-course-half-the-information-is-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.temple.edu\/aer\/2026\/03\/09\/of-course-half-the-information-is-enough\/","title":{"rendered":"OF COURSE HALF THE INFORMATION IS ENOUGH"},"content":{"rendered":"

I teach torts to our 1L classes.\u00a0 In the exam I gave last fall, I posed a NextGen bar exam style question in which I invented a criminal statute relevant to the fact scenario and summarized the statute in about one sentence.\u00a0 However, I never gave my students the text of the statute.\u00a0 The text of the statute wasn\u2019t necessary to my question.\u00a0 The question simply asked by what legal standard a court would measure the statute to determine if the statute set a standard of care in a civil negligence case.\u00a0 Ah, yes!\u00a0 That old chestnut.\u00a0 Negligence per se.\u00a0 The question was an easy one on my exam\u2014give me the precise three elements of the negligence per se standard and snag a small quantum of points.\u00a0 I expected most students to do very well on this and most did.\u00a0 What I didn\u2019t expect were the students who, without even possessing the text of the statute, went so far as to offer an opinion on whether the statute actually did <\/em>set the standard of care. \u00a0You know.\u00a0 The statute they didn\u2019t even have in front of them. The silver lining is the teachable moment I get to have with my students about what it means to be a good lawyer.\u00a0 A simple rule: lawyers don\u2019t offer opinions on statutes they haven\u2019t read or even seen.\u00a0 But it\u2019s the entire sum of these little steps up the mountain that better prepares us to take on clients, right? I find this sort of naivety mildly charming in 1Ls, so long as I don\u2019t later see it in them as 3Ls.<\/p>\n

Lest we think only fledgling 1Ls are bold in the face of inadequate information, the featured experiment for this month\u2019s blog brings us crashing down to the humbling dirt beneath our feet of clay.\u00a0 In this study, the researchers sought to test the confidence of decision-makers by purposefully depriving them of the opposing point of view before asking them to make a decision.\u00a0 The background information was specifically chosen to avoid hot-button issues.\u00a0 Subjects would read about a regional water shortage and how two public schools were considering a merger to cope with the shortage.\u00a0 The control group received three arguments describing the benefits of school merger, three arguments giving the benefits of staying separate, and one neutral argument.\u00a0 However, the two test groups were specifically deprived of opposing arguments.\u00a0 Thus, the pro-merger group received the three arguments for school merger and the one neutral argument, and the pro-separate-schools test group received the three arguments for keeping the schools separate as well as the same neutral argument.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

Once all groups read their respective batches of arguments, they had to make a firm decision on the problem: in the face of a water shortage, merge the two schools or keep them operating separately.\u00a0 Among other things tested, researchers then asked survey questions of the groups to determine whether they thought they had a sufficient quantity of information to make a decision, whether they felt competent to make a decision, and whether they thought others would reach the same conclusion on this merge-or-stay-separate question.[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

As we often do in this blog, we come to the soft, vulnerable underbelly of human cognition.\u00a0 First, even though the two test groups possessed half of the information of the control group, both groups reported above-average confidence in having sufficient information.[3]<\/a> And with only half the argument, both test groups matched the confidence levels of the well-versed control group when asked about their competency to make the decision.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 Finally, the test groups largely believed that a majority of other people would reach the same decision on the question as they made.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n

Oof.\u00a0 That all stings a bit, doesn\u2019t it.\u00a0 It gets worse.<\/p>\n

The researchers also asked all<\/em><\/strong> the groups how confident they were that they made the correct decision.\u00a0 Despite the test groups each obviously having no arguments in opposition to the merge or stay-separate arguments that they did <\/em>have, the test groups\u2019 participants reported being \u201cconfident\u201d in their decision to merge or stay separate.[6]<\/a>\u00a0 Still not bad enough?\u00a0 The test groups\u2019 \u201cparticipants reported significantly greater initial confidence [in their decision] than [those in the control group].\u201d[7]<\/a>\u00a0 Let me put that in other words:\u00a0 The folks who clearly had only half of an argument in front of them reported feeling more confident in their decision than the folks who had both sides of the argument.<\/p>\n

And there it is.\u00a0 The \u201cillusion of information adequacy\u201d as the researchers call it.[8]<\/a>\u00a0 It all becomes slightly more terrifying when we consider that our internet browsers and social media platforms are strategically engineered to funnel our preferred views and voices into our eyes and ears.\u00a0 As if it weren\u2019t bad enough that our brains already fill us with a false sense of informational confidence!\u00a0 When I think about how to apply this to my own life and to my classrooms, I wonder if learning about the illusion of informational adequacy accomplishes the same thing as learning how to be humble in the face of whatever<\/em> information we happen to have. Perhaps that\u2019s a discussion for another day. With what little information I have in front of me now, I\u2019m just going to confidently decide those two things are separate and do not automatically merge.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Hunter Gehlbach, Carly D. Robinson & Amanda Fletcher, The Illusion of Information Adequacy<\/em>, 19 PLOS ONE e0310216, 3 (2024), https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.0310216<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Id<\/em>. at 6.<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Id<\/em>. at 8.<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Id<\/em>.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Id<\/em>. at 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I teach torts to our 1L classes.\u00a0 In the exam I gave last fall, I posed a NextGen bar exam style question in which I invented a criminal statute relevant to the fact scenario and summarized the statute in about one sentence.\u00a0 However, I never gave my students the text of the statute.\u00a0 The text<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":31,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"coauthors":[203],"class_list":["post-4002","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brain-lessons"],"yoast_head":"\nOF COURSE HALF THE INFORMATION IS ENOUGH - Advocacy and Evidence Resources<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/law.temple.edu\/aer\/2026\/03\/09\/of-course-half-the-information-is-enough\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"OF COURSE HALF THE INFORMATION IS ENOUGH - 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