What motivates one to correct another's flawed thinking?

It really depends on the subject and in the relationship between the corrector and the correctee.

Yes, which is why I requested an overall percentage of all your combined experiences and observations of others in this task.

“What motivates one to correct another’s flawed thinking?”

I like to be right. Everyone else does too.

”...what is the rate of success for correcting another’s flawed thinking?”

Very few told me “You are right” mostly because I wasn’t

”...why continue in a task with little to no success…”

Because doing tasks with little to no success is my main hobby.

Welcome to Fluther.

Is it possible to be right without correcting another’s flawed thinking?

Welcome to Fluther.

For myself, one of my primary motivations to participate in debate, discussion and essay (such as this, for a simple example) is self-interest: to help to clarify and crystallize my thought processes and reasoning for my own benefit. It also helps to improve my writing (hey, if you think this is bad writing, you should have seen where I started from).

I also have a modestly altruistic motive: to leave a record for posterity. (That is, because most of my attempts in this realm are in written form.) When I have experience, information or superior reasoning that can help others, and if I can afford the time and slight aggravation involved, then I enjoy leaving the nuggets for others to find. I also don’t like leaving the field to those whom I know to be incorrect, inexperienced or fraudulent, so that those are the only words left.

Less frequently, the person that I may be trying to correct – if I do have that aim – is because of a personal connection with the individual, and my wish that they not come a cropper or take a fall over bad reasoning, being misled by false, fraudulent or simply incorrect information – or even to test my own knowledge. I do not believe myself to be infallible. Sometimes my argument helps me to discover the error in my own facts, logic or belief. But not often. I am pretty damn incredible, after all.

Does this task allow for continuous self-improvement? When you first started out arguing with others it may have been somewhat of a challenge, however, if you don’t increase the difficulty of the challenge, you don’t improve. Are you always being challenged by the people you argue with?

With that in mind, what is your overall success rate of self-improvment in this task?

Altruistically, what is your success rate?

I started the process with my parents during my teenage years. My father, especially, was a very patient and thoughtful man (mostly) and even when I disagreed with him strongly, which turned out to be less and less often as we both grew smarter, we seldom got into the kinds of shouting matches that were pretty common among my contemporaries and their parents. In fact, even during my “communist” period of the early 1970s – when my parents were always and only Republicans of that old school – we never even got into discussions that were as heated and nonsensical as those that pass for “news and opinion” on some television “talk” shows.

Unfortunately, I suppose, I don’t go out of my way enough now to look for thoughtful people with differing viewpoints in real life. Mostly I stick to Fluther for “decent” debate – and Facebook if I want to start a fuss.

I spend more time than I should fighting on the internet, so I think about this a lot.

I think it is addictive. My unfortunate situation is that I don’t have a lot of self-esteem, and I get a dopamine hit out of writing a well-worded rant telling somebody they’re wrong about something (and that I, in turn, am right), and regardless of how the person in question responds (which is usually not favorable) it gives me an ugly sense of…accomplishment? pride? to at least feel like I’m in the right about something. I imagine that even if the person I’m speaking to reacts poorly, there are other people reading the rant who are like “aw yeah this Mariah chick is super smart” (and a website like Fluther enables this feeling by providing that “Great Answer” count below each answer).

I’m sincerely trying to stop. It is not healthy.

I’ve been working on not always having to prove I’m right even though I know I always am.

General principle…“I cannot & will not let that shite go”
Rather like a constipated dog, only not so much.

I agree with @Sneki95.

I like to be right. I like to be right more than I hate being wrong.

Also I bottle my thoughts and emotions up on a daily basis and arguing with brick walls on the Internet is cathartic, and slightly more healthy than succumbing to the urge to stab people in the face with a knitting needle or self-medicating with organ-damaging amounts of alcohol.

Have I ever changed someone’s mind? Maybe? I don’t really keep score.

Of course it’s about vanity, but there is the additional fact that there are a plethora of things said and written that must not be allowed to stand unchallenged.

This is another one of those questions that annoys the shit out of me. The problem with a broad and subjective concept like “flawed thinking” is that it is too readily thrown around. We toss it out there when we are actually talking about the “products” of thought. There’s something about having to glare at or listen to a flawed argument that agitates us, and the effect becomes increasingly severe the more emotionally we are invested.

It’s ego, plain and simple. Ego always wants to be right, Unless it is some earth shattering misconception or a life or death thing, usually it is best to just share your take on something and let it go. We cannot change others, ever, that’s an inside job.

The only things I attempt to correct in others are factual misconceptions. Factual information is one thing, arguing against anothers POV/opinions as flawed is fruitless 99% of the time. The old agree to disagree mantra.

Don’t we all strive to reach the truth, individually and as part of a group and so we learn and help others to learn. Pointing out the errors of others should be done with diplomacy and tact.

@flutherother The problem is that it is rarely done with diplomacy and tact. Most of the time, especially on the net, it’s done through belittling and insulting.

Narcissism pretty much, it’s an urge to look smart and be correct and I just realized I’m describing myself

Howdy, @RocksoC!

Shhhhh I’m not the droi- I mean RocksoC you’re looking for @Seek

Aside for cwotus’s self-improvement, if I understood correctly, those of you who persist in the futile task of correcting another’s flawed thinking are doing it because the process itself makes you feel good? It’s not really about correcting someone as much as it is about making yourself feel good through this process?

Is there a productive task that can offer the same feeling you experience from this futile task?

^Exactly!
And no, not really, at least not for me.

Flawed thinking leads to flawed actions so we have some responsibility to correct matters where we can. It doesnt necessarily make you feel good it can be a difficult and even a dangerous task to point out the error of someone’s ways.