4 Criteria for a Good and Valid Opinion

Posted December 17, 2021

Seth Meyers Psy.D

Some opinions have more meaning than others if they meet certain criteria.

Key points

• A valid opinion is good because it is objective, capturing reality to the optimal extent possible.
• Research has shown that negative opinions are more impactful in changing attitudes, but they aren't
necessarily more valid.
• Individuals should evaluate another person's opinion on four criteria before deciding whether to heed it.

Across various media formats, much has been spoken about the current zeitgeist in which self-promotion and
egocentrism underlie the way we think and communicate as a society. Some have gone as far as suggesting that
narcissism, fueled by social media as a vehicle for self-presentation and the expression of opinions, has become the
psychological status quo.

Interesting research on expressing and formulating opinions

In everyday life, people often spout opinions as if they’re facts, which is probably why opinions can actually cause
shifts in others’ attitudes. Research, for example, has shown that negative opinions expressed can cause more shifts
in attitudes than positive ones (University of Chicago Press Journals, 2007). Yet, just because a given opinion has such
power, it doesn’t necessarily indicate a valid, thought-out perspective.

Part of what makes opinion-sharing problematic is that opinions are often formulated quickly and without thoughtful
reflection. As another example, research has shown that the opinions individuals develop about others are often
formulated in the brain extremely quickly. Something as crucial as deciding whether someone is likable or not may be
determined by processes in the brain in a matter of milliseconds (Schiller, Gianotti, Baumgartner, Nash, Koenig, &
Knoch, 2017).

The difference between an objective fact and a subjective opinion

Given the rapid and sometimes idiosyncratic way humans formulate opinions, it is important to distinguish between
what is true and factual in expressed communication and what is an opinion. An opinion, by definition, is not perfectly
objective. And though an opinion is not perfectly objective, the truth is that some opinions are more objective and, in
turn, legitimate than others.

To begin, what makes an opinion legitimate? While two or more individuals can share their perspective on a given
subject, the likelihood is that one opinion will be “better” or more valid than another, and the purpose here is to
determine why that is.

1 Mood neutrality

In the same commonsense way that an individual’s perspective on something can be influenced by life experience,
mood can also influence one’s perspective. As an example, one could have an experience driving in which she is cut
off by another driver and immediately dismiss the act as meaningless, or she could be in an angry mood at the time
and attribute the same behavior to the malicious motives of the other driver. In the second scenario, her mood alters
her perspective—or opinion—on the reality of what happened.
A good opinion is one that captures the reality of the subject at hand with the utmost objectivity, and to be objective,
one must also form their opinion without an altered mood or emotion. A good and valid opinion is one that is
formulated and expressed from the position of a neutral mood, not one that is sad, irritable, angry, or even especially
happy. Ultimately, operating in a mood that is anything other than neutral means that emotion may interfere with
true objectivity and threaten the validity of the opinion.

2 Personal bias

Social psychology has extensively addressed various ways that personal bias impacts human thinking and behavior.
Extensive experience with respect to a particular issue or group of people, for example, can cause a person to
overexaggerate or, conversely, focus too narrowly when formulating their opinion on a related topic. Overall, a good
and valid opinion is one that does not reflect personal bias, meaning that the individual has formulated their
perspective based on the whole rather than a particular part of the whole. An opinion is not good or valid if the
individual issuing it has either a positive or negative bias about the subject.

3 Absence of significant unmet emotional needs

Human beings have various emotional needs, including the need for affiliation or love, attention, and control. In order
for an individual’s thinking and behavior to be balanced, the individual must have these emotional needs met to a
sufficient degree. While it’s true that most people don’t get the ideal degree of a particular emotional need met in
their daily lives, the balanced individual does get enough of their emotional needs met.

Yet when an individual feels emotionally starved for a major emotional need, their thinking and behavior reflect the
deficit. For example, an individual who feels starved for attention and recognition may be more likely to express
opinions on all sorts of subjects as a means of commanding attention and appearing as an expert. On the other hand,
an individual who feels listened to and respected as an authority at work may feel less of a need to express an opinion
because she doesn’t need more attention than she already gets.

A good and valid opinion is one issued by an individual who doesn’t have significantly unmet emotional needs. If an
individual has significant unmet emotional needs, it’s almost inevitable that the unmet needs will trigger anxiety that
renders the formulation of the opinion impulsive, irrational, or emotional.

4 Absence of fear

One of the most profound factors that underlie much of human behavior is fear, often impacting one’s thoughts,
feelings, and behavior. Fear is often at the root of an opinion, as well. While fear is natural and, in fact, biologically
driven, it reduces the legitimacy of an opinion. Fear often triggers a fight-or-flight response in the limbic system,
causing an individual to be more likely to engage in narrow thinking, limited perspective-taking, and impulsive
behavior. Accordingly, if the content of an individual’s opinion intersects with any subject of fear for the individual,
the opinion will be more personalized and anxiety-based and, as a result, less valid and objective.

Conclusion

Careful consideration of what makes an opinion good and valid is important in raising our own self-awareness
regarding the opinions we formulate and express to others. Such consideration is also useful in terms of understanding
how we should interpret and respond to the opinions of those around us. Conflicts between individuals, for example,
often morph into power struggles, with each taking the other’s opinions as rigid facts to be taken at face value. The
next time someone shares an opinion with you, evaluate the opinion based on the criteria outlined here before you
decide how much weight to give it.
References

Bastian Schiller, Lorena R. R. Gianotti, Thomas Baumgartner, Kyle Nash, Thomas Koenig, Daria Knoch. Clocking the social mind by
identifying mental processes in the IAT with electrical neuroimaging. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016;
201515828 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1515828113.

University of Chicago Press Journals. "Negativity Is Contagious, Study Finds." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 7 October 2007.
<www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071004135757.htm&gt;.