KEY #10: Maybe there's hope for people
The last few newsletters were very discouraging! We talked about two of the (many) ways that people defend their brains against information that might change their minds — motivated reasoning and confirmation bias.
Before we give up on people entirely, let's look at a few experimental ways that psychologists have found to fight these effects.
• Provide alternative explanations
One reason that people have trouble correcting false beliefs is that they understand a chain of events from A to B to C, and if one of those elements (let's say B) is taken away, you still have A and C, and it's hard to maintain the overall picture if B isn't in it.
So researchers at the University of Michigan came up with a test.
They gave subjects a story about a fire, and element B was that arson materials were found at the scene, so conclusion C was that the fire was an arson.
They then simply told some people that B was not true — but many of those people continued to believe the arson story, because that left a "coherence gap" and the recipients kept the original story in memory.
But they told some other subjects that there was a different explanation: there was an electrical fault and loose papers had been left around the property. In this case, it was easier for subjects to negate conclusion C, because they had an alternative explanation B that they could plug into the story, and that made it a new conclusion understandable.
• Some more techniques
Here are a few other ways psychologists have found to deal with misinformation:
Correcting fast: In psychology this means within seconds or minutes, before the false story is encoded in the hearer's memory. In politics, if you think back to the documentary "The War Room," the Clinton campaign worked to respond to everything during the same cable-news cycle, which might have meant within hours. Today with social media, you might have to think about responding within half an hour.
Pre-exposure warnings: Let people know they're about to hear something untrue. As one paper notes: "A warning would allow recipients to monitor the encoded input and 'tag' it as suspect."
Repetition: Repeating the correction can be more effective than making a single correction. I have a little trouble with this point. Why? Because we know that repeating something false embeds it deeper in the listener's mind. That means you need to do your correction without repeating what you don't want people to hear. That's a tightrope act for you. You have to get the language right.
Undermine the source: Drawing attention to a source’s motivation can undermine the impact of misinformation from that source.
Using affirmative attributes: As one paper says, if Jim is accused of being messy, you don't want to say, "Jim is not messy." That reinforces the mental image of Jim as messy, and just attaches "not" to it. You should be saying, "Jim is tidy."
Takeaway: Get out ahead of charges with your own framing.
Next week, we'll look at one more cognitive bias that keeps us from changing our minds, and we'll figure out how we can do the impossible — actually change minds in politics.
• Okay, so how does this help me?
Well, it helps in a limited way. Some of these ideas were developed with juries — presumably unbiased and truth-seeking observers — in mind. But committed partisans are engaged in motivated reasoning and confirmation bias, so none of these "laboratory" techniques are going to work on them. (Hey, if people in Alabama can vote for Roy Moore, they can accommodate themselves to anything.) But they could have a generalized effect on voters in the middle as well as media coverage.
Alternative explanations: I think the 2017 tax cut is a great place for giving an alternative explanation — specifically, that Republicans needed to reward their top donors. That leads to the conclusion that the tax cut wasn't for "us"; it was for people who were already rich.
"What happened before the tax bill was, the big donors called Republicans on the carpet and told them if they didn't get their tax cut, there wouldn't be any more donations. So they got right on it."
Reframe, don't repeat: Remember the "Jim is tidy" rule! That means, you don't say, "I'm NOT bad thing X." You say, "I am good thing Y." Always be telling the story you want to tell, not repeating the story your opponent told.
Opponent: "She took money from bad person X."
You: "We've actually gotten donations from 3,700 people who care about this country, and I'm going to use that to do my best for the people of our district."
Opponent: "She's a socialist who wants to take over America's health-care system."
You: "We made sure health care would be here when people need it, like you, your parents and your children."
Now that I write this, I realize this is basically what the “Checkers" speech was.
Pre-exposure warnings: Make sure to cast it in your own terms, not remaking the opponent's case.
"He's going to get more and more desperate, the closer we get to election day. None of it scares me."
"He's going to tell you about the great tax bill he passed. But I want you to ask yourself one thing: Do I have my own lobbyist in Washington? If the answer is no, that money wasn't for you."
Joshua Tanzer
jmtanzer@gmail.com
Los Angeles, California
Takeaway Toteboard
- KEY #1: Republicans are from Mars, Democrats are from Swarthmore. (Feb. 23):
• Democrats run an intellectual campaign to voters who are emotional creatures.
• Instead of running an intellectual campaign, we need to use our intellect to create an emotional campaign.
- KEY #2: What does the Democrats’ hat say? (Feb. 26)
• The Republicans’ philosophy fits on a hat. Democrats don’t have one.
- KEY #3: Love isn’t rational. (Feb 28):
• Politics is emotion.
• If you find yourself trying to argue intellectually, stop! Find the emotional argument.
- KEY #4: You’re an animal! (March 1):
• Our attitudes come from our identity.
• You are speaking to the voter's animal brain.
- KEY #5: Don’t take away my _____! (March 4):
• Don't get into a fight with people's way of life.
• When you talk about change, find the “win.”
- KEY #6: You are this boy and life is this marshmallow. (March 6):
• Find ways to affirm people's way of life.
• Don’t just campaign; build community.
- KEY #7: Motivated reasoning (aka “Remember this friggin guy?”) (March 8):
• People believe what they need to believe.
- KEY #8: How your head keeps from exploding (March 11):
• People experiencing cognitive dissonance want an alternative narrative to make it better.
• Do not engage with your opponent’s alternative narrative.
- KEY #9: Lalalalalalalala, I'm not listening! (March 13):
• People don't hear information that conflicts with their opinions.
• Misinformation stays in people's heads. (And trying to correct it doesn't work well.)
• Don't respond to attacks by repeating the same attacks in your own language.
- KEY #10: Maybe there’s hope for people (March 15):
• Get out ahead of charges with your own framing.
• Correct misinformation fast.
• Let people know when they're about to hear something untrue.
• Undermine the source.
• Reframe, don’t repeat.