By David Ignatius
Thursday, August 04, 2016
How did Donald Trump win the Republican nomination,
despite clear evidence that he had misrepresented or falsified key issues
throughout the campaign? Social scientists have some intriguing explanations
for why people persist in misjudgments despite strong contrary evidence.
Trump is a vivid and, to his critics, a frightening
present-day illustration of this perception problem. But it has been studied
carefully by researchers for more than 30 years. Basically, the studies show
that attempts to refute false information often backfire and lead people to
hold on to their misperceptions even more strongly.
This literature about misperception was lucidly
summarized by Christopher Graves, the global chairman of Ogilvy Public
Relations, in a February 2015 article in the Harvard Business Review, months before Trump surfaced as a
candidate. Graves is now writing a book about his research at the Rockefeller
Foundation’s Bellagio Center in Italy.
Graves’s article examined the puzzle of why nearly
one-third of U.S. parents believe that childhood vaccines cause autism, despite
overwhelming medical evidence that there’s no such link. In such cases, he
noted, “arguing the facts doesn’t help — in fact, it makes the situation
worse.” The reason is that people tend to accept arguments that confirm their
views and discount facts that challenge what they believe.
This “confirmation bias” was outlined in a 1979 article
by psychologist Charles Lord, cited by Graves. Lord found that his test
subjects, when asked questions about capital punishment, responded with answers
shaped by their prior beliefs. “Instead of changing their minds, most will dig
in their heels and cling even more firmly to their originally held views,”
Graves explained in summarizing the study.
Trying to correct misperceptions can actually reinforce
them, according to a 2006 paper by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, also cited
by Graves. They documented what they called a “backfire effect” by showing the
persistence of the belief that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in 2005 and
2006, after the United States had publicly admitted that they didn’t exist.
“The results show that direct factual contradictions can actually strengthen ideologically grounded
factual belief,” they wrote.
Next Graves examined how attempts to debunk myths can
reinforce them, simply by repeating the untruth. He cited a 2005 study in the
Journal of Consumer Research on “How Warnings about False Claims Become
Recommendations.” It seems that people remember the assertion and forget
whether it’s a lie. The authors wrote: “The more often older adults were told
that a given claim was false, the more likely they were to accept it as true
after several days have passed.”
When critics challenge false assertions — say, Trump’s
claim that thousands of Muslims cheered in New Jersey when the twin towers fell
on Sept. 11, 2001 — their refutations can threaten people, rather than convince
them. Graves noted that if people feel attacked, they resist the facts all the
more. He cited a study by Nyhan and Reifler that examined why people
misperceived three demonstrable facts: that violence in Iraq declined after
President George W. Bush’s troop surge; that jobs have increased during
President Obama’s tenure; and that global temperatures are rising.
The study showed two interesting things: People are more
likely to accept information if it’s presented unemotionally, in graphs; and
they’re even more accepting if the factual presentation is accompanied by
“affirmation” that asks respondents to recall an experience that made them feel
good about themselves.
Bottom line: Vilifying Trump voters — or, alternatively,
parents who don’t want to have their children vaccinated — won’t convince them
they’re wrong. Probably it will have the opposite effect.
The final point that emerged from Graves’s survey is that
people will resist abandoning a false belief unless they have a compelling
alternative explanation. That point was made in an article called “The
Debunking Handbook,” by Australian researchers John Cook and Stephan
Lewandowsky. They wrote: “Unless great care is taken, any effort to debunk
misinformation can inadvertently reinforce the very myths one seeks to
correct.”
Trump’s campaign pushes buttons that social scientists
understand. When the GOP nominee paints a dark picture of a violent,
frightening America, he triggers the “fight or flight” response that’s
hardwired in our brains. For the body politic, it can produce a kind of panic
attack.
Screaming back at Trump for these past 12 months may have
been satisfying for his critics, but it hasn’t dented his support much. What
seems to be hurting Trump in the polls now are self-destructive comments that
trouble even his most passionate supporters. Attempts to aggressively “correct”
his remaining fans may only deepen their attachment.
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