The Science of How and What We Think

or, What would Bono Do?

Question

• If you have an important environmental issue, how would you persuade a "non-believer" about the importance of the facts and the issue?
• data? education?

PREDICTED

WHAT REALLY HAPPENS

WE ARE ALL SUBJECT TO THIS

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How do We Overcome Ourselves?

Bono, and innovative communication

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Chris Mooney

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Dan Kahan

reasoning is suffused with emotion

our feelings about information occur much more rapidly than our consciousness perceives it

•we push threatening information away

•we pull friendly information close

•we apply "fight or flight" reflexes not only to predators, but to data

•when we think we are reasoning, we may be rationalizing


• when we think we are being scientists, we may be acting as lawyers

Ironically, in part because researchers employ so much nuance and strive to disclose all remaining sources of uncertainty, scientific evidence is highly susceptible to selective reading and misinterpretation.

Giving ideologues or partisans scientific data that’s relevant to their beliefs is like unleashing them in the motivated-reasoning equivalent of a candy store.

Head-on attempts to persuade can sometimes trigger a backfire effect, where people not only fail to change their minds when confronted with the facts—they may hold their wrong views more tenaciously than ever.

Interviewer: [T]he September 11 Commission found no link between Saddam and 9/11, and this is what President Bush said. Do you have any comments on either of those?



Respondent: Well, I bet they say that the Commission didn’t have any proof of it but I guess we still can have our opinions and feel that way even though they say that.

Indeed, there’s a sense in which science denial could be considered keenly “rational.” In certain conservative communities, explains Yale’s Kahan, “People who say, ‘I think there’s something to climate change,’ that’s going to mark them out as a certain kind of person, and their life is going to go less well.”

This may help explain a curious pattern Nyhan and his colleagues found when they tried to test the fallacy (PDF) that President Obama is a Muslim. When a nonwhite researcher was administering their study, research subjects were amenable to changing their minds about the president’s religion and updating incorrect views. But when only white researchers were present, GOP survey subjects in particular were more likely to believe the Obama Muslim myth than before. The subjects were using “social desirabililty” to tailor their beliefs (or stated beliefs, anyway) to whoever was listening.

“People who have a dislike of some policy—for example, abortion—if they’re unsophisticated they can just reject it out of hand,” says Lodge. “But if they’re sophisticated, they can go one step further and start coming up with counterarguments.” These individuals are just as emotionally driven and biased as the rest of us, but they’re able to generate more and better reasons to explain why they’re right—and so their minds become harder to change.

Acceptance of human made global warming

this applies to all sides of a cultural/political perspective

So is there a case study of science denial that largely occupies the political left? Yes: the claim that childhood vaccines are causing an epidemic of autism. Its most famous proponents are an environmentalist (Robert F. Kennedy Jr.) and numerous Hollywood celebrities (most notably Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey). The Huffington Post gives a very large megaphone to denialists. And Seth Mnookin, author of the new book The Panic Virus, notes that if you want to find vaccine deniers, all you need to do is go hang out at Whole Foods.

GIVEN THE POWER OF our prior beliefs to skew how we respond to new information, one thing is becoming clear: If you want someone to accept new evidence, make sure to present it to them in a context that doesn’t trigger a defensive, emotional reaction.



You lead with the values—so as to give the facts a fighting chance.

so, what is the best way to discuss and introduce controversial topics?

1. One is identity affirmation
.

When shown risk information (e.g., global temperatures are increasing) that they
associate with a conclusion threatening to their cultural values (commerce must be
constrained), individuals tend to react dismissively toward that information; however,
when shown that the information in fact supports or is consistent with a conclusion
that affirms their cultural values (society should rely more on nuclear power), such
individuals are more likely to consider the information open-mindedly

2. Another is pluralistic advocacy
.

Individuals reflexively reject information incon-sistent with their predispositions when they perceive that it is being advocated by experts whose values they reject and opposed by ones whose values they share. In contrast, they attend more open-mindedly to such information, and are much more likely to accept it, if they perceive that there are experts of diverse values on both sides
of the debate

3. Finally, there is narrative framing
.

Individuals tend to assimilate information by fitting it to pre-existing narrative templates or schemes that invest the information with meaning. The elements of these narrative templates – the identity of the stock
heroes and villains, the nature of their dramatic struggles, and the moral stakes of their engagement with one another – vary in identifiable and recurring ways across cultural groups. By crafting messages to evoke narrative templates that are culturally conge
nial to target audiences, risk communicators can help to assure that the content of the
information they are imparting receives considered attention across diverse cultural groups

3. Finally, there is narrative framing
.

Individuals tend to assimilate information by fitting it to pre-existing narrative templates or schemes that invest the information with meaning. The elements of these narrative templates – the identity of the stock
heroes and villains, the nature of their dramatic struggles, and the moral stakes of their engagement with one another – vary in identifiable and recurring ways across cultural groups. By crafting messages to evoke narrative templates that are culturally conge
nial to target audiences, risk communicators can help to assure that the content of the
information they are imparting receives considered attention across diverse cultural groups

Bono: what does he do?

Kathryn Hayhoe: what does she do?

Hayhoe:
scientist
Christian
winner of prestigious AGU science communications award

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how do you respond to Kathryn Hayhoe?

• first, are you individualist or egalitarian?
• what resonated (or upset) you?
• what communication skills that we discussed did she use?

Some Observations

• bono: find common values before engaging "identity affirmation, narrative framing"
• hayhoe: "pluralistic advocacy" and "identity affirmation"

summary and next steps

• emotion and logic are woven together in how we perceive threats
• some possible ways to allow facts to be heard are emerging, but are also part of a very complex communication environment
• next, we learn about what "science" is, what it is not.