By Julia Galef
Ever notice how some beliefs only seem to become stronger, even as they're repeatedly debunked? For example, the belief that Barack Obama is a Muslim is held by at least 10 percent of the population, despite having been repeatedly denied and debunked for months in the national news.
Brendan Nyhan is a political scientist and blogger at the University of Michigan who has been investigating why this happens, and how people process media information that contradicts what they already think. So why aren't they swayed by hearing that Obama is not a Muslim? "The 'not' seems to fade away," Nyhan said on a recent On The Media appearance. "The canonical example in politics is Richard Nixon saying, I'm not a crook, and after a while people started associating “Nixon” and “crook.”"
This issue is especially relevant to skeptics, who often find themselves in the tricky position of deciding whether or not to publicly debunk bogus claims like the vaccine-autism link or the efficacy of homeopathic remedies. Will the coverage clear up misconceptions? Or will it backfire, calling public attention to the claims and actually reinforcing belief in them?
On episode 19 of Rationally Speaking, we'll be talking to Nyhan about what he's learned from his research studies and his experience maintaining Spinsanity, a watchdog blog monitoring political misinformation. Is there any hope of clearing up false beliefs if denials simply make the problem worse? Leave comments and questions for Nyhan below.
WRT Obama is a Muslim - are you sure it has been debunked in all the media like you say? Since the levels are low, it's not hard to imagine that they could be getting their news from some real crazy sources (where "real crazy" includes several shows on Fox - hardly fringe sites). Instead of people debunking the claim who are reinforcing it, it could be Limbaugh, Beck or Farrah repeating the false claim which is actually doing the reinforcing.
ReplyDeleteQuestion: this claim that debunking a claim strengthens it sounds, well, grossly incomplete or at least wildly exaggerated. Since a significant majority of people believe that Obama is not a muslim, reporting/debunking clearly does work in general. I think there needs to be some qualifiers like "under some circumstances" or "for some people" or something but I've never heard them. Can your guest please clear this up. What are the percentages, what are the circumstances where this holds, how does repetition affect it? As Julia states it here it seems trivially false so either it must be a bad paraphrasing (likely) or there must be a lot more going on (probable).
Nyhan's research was recently the basis for a fantastic story in the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/
ReplyDeleteMichael De Dora said..."Nyhan's research was recently the basis for a fantastic story in the Boston Globe: How Facts Backfire
ReplyDeleteGreat article. The issues presented are the crux of why we can't stop our civilization from going over the cliff....why we need a radically new approach to information distribution ...new methods & institutions informed by cognitive neuroscience and behavioral research.
The internet is better for pulling than pushing, and its rife with info quality control problems.
Poor Richard's Almanack 2010
Nyhan has suggested naming and shaming as a means of correcting bad information. Does he have any ideas about what to do when the media is populated by individuals who apparently feel no shame and are paid precisely because they have no shame in spreading false and defamatory information?
ReplyDeleteIn the book 50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology (one of Julia's Rationally Speaking podcast picks, which I read as a result) touches on this issue. Pages 19-20 of the introduction cite several studies that are relevant to this podcast; perhaps Julia or Massimo, you might like to review some of those cited for the show.
ReplyDeleteIt's seems a zero sum game doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteI grudgingly accept politics as a mixture of honest and dishonest discourse. I feel compelled to vote my conscience but it's an ironic act. The person voted for is going to posture, probably lie, and look earnest while doing so.
Given that, I don't think culture and repetition are entirely at fault for propagating this idea about President Obama. There's also an 'openly hidden' system at work which doesn't care about truth or falsity, only itself. This obviously generates distrust. Hence, the issue doesn't seem to be about "clearing up" false beliefs per se, but about creating a counter system of information, one with which the electorate can engage.
Can someone help me out please? Both Pres Obama's father and paternal grandfather were Muslims. Islam claims that any child of a Muslim father is a Muslim. Obama now insists he is Christian. Fine. That makes him an apostate by Islamic reckoning. Is an apostate by Muslim reckoning still a Muslim or no longer a Muslim but just an apostate? If the former, those who claim him as a Muslim are correct, at least by Muslim reckoning, and don't therefore deserve to be regarded as nut cases. If the latter is the case, why should American citizens be expected to know the more arcane doctrines of Islam?
ReplyDeleteWhere am I wrong?
Peter Clemerson
Peter, let's assume that your reasoning is correct. Are you seriously trying to argue that the problem is created by an arcane aspect of Muslim doctrine? In what sort of parallel universe have you been spending the last few years?
ReplyDeleteMassimo,
ReplyDeleteMy parallel universe is the country of New Zealand where the minutiae of American politics are not reported. We've all mock Sarah Palin but not a thousandth of us will have heard of Rush Limbaugh.
I am actually interested in knowing what the Islamic authorities have to say on the issue. Are there American Muslim spokesmen claiming he is Muslim for the reason I suggested and might a goodly proportion of the Obama haters actually have heard such claims. Or not, as the case may be.
But what is the case?
(As you can see, not all your visitors are from the US, a gratifying observation I hope)
@Peter Clemerson
ReplyDeleteThere is only one relevant fact here: that the man says that he is Christian (and not a Muslim)... this requires no understanding at all of the religion. It is irrelevant what Islam has to say about it, because you would have to be Muslim to care, which he is not. This really is not complicated.
The fact that people tend to remember myths as being true is fairly well established and is exploited in many areas of life, particularly politics. Associations with negative things tend to stick, even when the information is later to be shown to be false.
ReplyDeleteRecently, republicans have been better at taking advantage of this fact (Kerry as a flip flopper, Sadam Hussein and 9/11 connection, Democrats and spending, illegal immigration as getting worse, etc) Once an association with something negative sticks in people's minds, those ideas are conflated... good luck trying to separate the two. Correcting the association requires that people are willing to put in the effort to find out the truth, and this is not likely if the myth fits with their worldview.
Peter, NZ is a parallel universe indeed, and a pleasant one, if memory serves. But your question entirely misses the point. First, it should not matter at all whether Obama is a Muslim or not - theoretically in the US religion is not a test for government. Second, Obama is a Christian by choice, which is all that matters in terms of religion. The broader point, of course, is that these rumors are fueled by a combination of Islamophobia and racism, regardless of what the finer points of Muslim theology may be.
ReplyDeleteMassimo & ccbowers,
ReplyDeleteI think Peter's question is similar to one I raised and I think you're missing it. If Limbaugh & others are repeating the claim that Obama is a Muslim or Muslim leaders are claiming him for themselves then the persistent belief that Obama is a Muslim could simply be because people repeat the claim that he IS, not that some people repeat the truth that he is NOT.
I'm asking, and I think Peter is asking as well: could there be a much simpler explanation for these observations than invoking this backfire hypothesis?
And while I'm on it, I would really like to know how valid this theory really is and how it's tested. What could disprove it? Look at the evidence presented: media outlets say Not X and 90% of people believe Not X while only 10% of people believe X, and somehow this is evidence for the theory that when we say Not X people will ignore the 'not' and believe X? When 90% of people don't fit the model, I've got to seriously question its the validity, or at the very least we should question its significance.
Tyro, I'm not sure what you are saying. What simpler explanation? We *know* the facts, and Limbaugh and others keep *distorting* them, clearly cynically, and clearly for cheap political gain. What else need to be understood?
ReplyDeleteMassimo,
ReplyDeleteWhat simpler explanation? We *know* the facts, and Limbaugh and others keep *distorting* them, clearly cynically, and clearly for cheap political gain. What else need to be understood?
That is the simple explanation I'm getting at!
I'm asking what value this elaborate, vague hypothesis that Julia says Nyhan is proposing brings to the table. It appears as if there are much simpler explanations and that his theory (that saying "not X" leads people to believe "X") is contradicted by the data.
Tyro, Nyhan's findings are about how people refuse to adjust their beliefs despite being presented with evidence to the contrary. In other words, even if I show you Obama's birth certificate, you still believe he is not American born. That goes beyond Limbaugh spreading falsities, it goes to the core of why such falsities persist even when debunked.
ReplyDeleteBTW: I don't want to overstate things to much. If a politician says "I am not a crook" or "I deny that I have used squirrels to enhance sexual pleasure" then I can see how people will associate them with being a crook or using rodents inappropriately. However sceptics have blown this into a huge identity crisis when the answer seems clear: make positive statements instead of negative ones.
ReplyDeleteInstead of "I am not a crook", say "I am honest, decent and morally upstanding". Instead of saying "Xenu did not create Krakatoa to spread body thetans", say "Krakatoa was a naturally occurring volcanic eruption." Can it be as simple as that? If so, I don't see what all the hubbub is about and if not, I really want to know what Nyhan is really saying.
(And in that case, the debate over Obama being a Muslim is a very poor example since Obama has not, to my knowledge, *denied* being a Muslim, rather his defenders have stated and shown the positive case that he is a Christian. Only Nixon's denial would fit.)
Not to belabour the point but:
ReplyDeleteTyro, Nyhan's findings are about how people refuse to adjust their beliefs despite being presented with evidence to the contrary. In other words, even if I show you Obama's birth certificate, you still believe he is not American born.
1. It's not clear that these people are not adjusting their views in spite of the evidence. Could they instead be not adjusting their views because the evidence they see (a preponderance of "experts") is narrow and biased? If their information is biased, we don't need to ask why their beliefs are biased.
2. You used me as an example but if 90% of people have accepted that he's a Christian, this sounds like a rare, lunatic fringe. It doesn't sound generalizable beyond a tiny population. If there's something generalizable, I get the feeling that the Obama-Muslim example is not valid. Either way, there seems to be a big disconnect between the summary, the evidence and the illustrations.
Harry C Pharisee said... "Hence, the issue doesn't seem to be about "clearing up" false beliefs per se, but about creating a counter system of information."
ReplyDeleteI think that is exactly right.
Trying to fix the existing information system is like Brer Rabbit trying to teach some manners to the Tar Baby.
As Wikipedia puts it, "In modern usage, "tar baby" refers to any "sticky situation" that is only aggravated by additional contact. The only way to solve such a situation is by separation."
In addition, Walt Kelly's Pogo says "We have met the enemy and he is us."
We have to look within to our own predictable irrationality, cognitive biases, implicit associations, and other habits of self-deception.
Poor Richard's Almanack 2010
Massimo Pigliucci said..."Tyro, Nyhan's findings are about how people refuse to adjust their beliefs despite being presented with evidence to the contrary. In other words, even if I show you Obama's birth certificate, you still believe he is not American born. That goes beyond Limbaugh spreading falsities, it goes to the core of why such falsities persist even when debunked."
ReplyDeleteThe tragedy is not just that we can't seem to compensate for predictable irrationality in our politics, media, and other institutions--we can't even seem to come to grips with it in ourselves!
Poor Richard's Almanack 2010
"And while I'm on it, I would really like to know how valid this theory really is and how it's tested. What could disprove it?"
ReplyDeleteThis has been done already. Here is how you do it: You create a prospective study that tells the participants an untruth (and tell them that it is true). At some point you correct the initial false statement, and inform the participants that it is actually a false statement. At some point later, you ask the participants about the initial statment. A large pecentage will remember the falsehood as being true despite the correction.
If you dislike who someone is or what they stand for, anything that supports your negativity will be tempting to accept. It's about what we want to believe, which always has the advantage over what we don't want. The burden to decry the negative is happily placed on the other side.
ReplyDeleteAnd Obama HAS stated that he is a Christian and that those who have said he's not are wrong. His burden as he rightly saw it was to decry the negativity of others.
And Nixon stated he was not a crook in the face of solid evidence that he was. Rather hard to just say I am honest and shrug off that body of evidence. The burden to decry the negative was clearly his at that point and he knew it.
Tyro,
ReplyDeleteResponses to negative accusations are best made in positive terms to avoid associative "backfire". It is also effective to associate opponents with negative memes, as long as the manner of delivering that message doesn't cross some line that triggers backfire.
I personally don't need much more evidence about how the brain's associative engine works to be convinced of that.
I am more interested in the broader issue of predictable irrationality including, but not limited to, those raised in Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely.
I think this area of research deserves at least as many resources as climate research because it is arguably the root cause of not one but ALL the anthropogenic threats we face.
Poor Richard's Almanack 2010
@ccbowers
ReplyDelete"There is only one relevant fact here: that the man says that he is Christian (and not a Muslim)..."
Thank you for bringing attention to what we can measure: what people say, and little more. We know a certain percentage say they think he is a Muslim, though perhaps the percentage who believe that is lower and it is simply an artifact of polling that people who dislike someone pick the most pejorative choice. I recall a poll in which several percent said they believed he was born in Hawaii, which was not a state at the time, disqualifying him from office. I find it hard to believe that a measurable percentage of people ever thought that.
Likewise, we know he says he is a Christian...well and good, I wonder if any polls ask respondents what the president says he is? I suspect many would say he says he is Christian despite being a secret Muslim or atheist.
"... this requires no understanding at all of the religion. It is irrelevant what Islam has to say about it, because you would have to be Muslim to care, which he is not."
Apostates are not infrequently brought to a state of uncaring about either that or anything else once they are seized (or in a while, in the case of females). You are simply expressing your inability to conceive of a case in which it could be relevant.
@Massimo
"First, it should not matter at all whether Obama is a Muslim or not..."
Nonsense and other comments. Not only a) do an individual's beliefs about the world matter, as well as b) the processes he uses for discriminating among new beliefs, others' perceptions matter. If identical twins who were alike in every way, down to their thoughts, ran against each other for office, then c) other nations' wildly divergent perceptions of them would be a legitimate reason to vote for one rather than the other. A similar argument was used by those citing Obama's race as a positive factor, despite it not directly impacting how he performs his duties, and makes evaluating his religious status valid.
"...theoretically in the US religion is not a test for government."
It is not, except insofar as one must gain favor in the eyes of others. Would you write and stand by the statement that "Theoretically in the US gender is not a test for government"?
"Second, Obama is a Christian by choice, which is all that matters in terms of religion."
It matters a great deal that he is a "Christian" (believing without evidence, not scrutinizing his religious beliefs against themselves lest they disintegrate under their own contradictions) and not a "Christian" (trashing science and reason so his internally consistent religious beliefs are not left inferior to them).
"The broader point, of course, is that these rumors are fueled by a combination of Islamophobia and racism, regardless of what the finer points of Muslim theology may be."
I strongly suspect racism has very, very little to do with it and that it's mostly a reaction to the political left and Islam in general.
We are left to speculate and I don't know how we could test our competing theories against each other.
This has been done already. Here is how you do it
ReplyDeleteWhich is fine as far as it goes (and I've heard the experiment described in just these mushy generalities), but I'd like to understand the specifics of the phrasing and what exactly is being studied. It's clear that under some circumstances people will take away the message that's actually written, under other circumstances they'll take away another. However it's often portrayed as people will generally take away the opposite which sounds contradictory.
Massimo,
ReplyDeleteIt's clear upon reflection that culture is a hidden decision maker but why do you believe it to be the sole decision maker?
You haven't said as much, I think one can reasonably infer it from your comments.
The probability that there are tea-partiers who hold rational beliefs about 'something' is enormously high. Do you really believe all of them incapable of seeing how disingenuous politics can be?
Imagine this country where somehow, everything is the same except for our politics. Only the most virtuous, ethical people become politicians. They are honest and caring, they desire an informed electorate, have helped to develop a relatively open system of decision making etc.
The question that follows is whether a similar tea-party would have popped up, due solely to cultural influences.
Of course I don't know, but I can rationally hedge my bet towards no, it would not have appeared, due to people's comprehension of open behavior, honest discourse, continual promise keeping, and how an institution that respects those qualities would work.
Yes, these particular accusations are a bit silly. Isn't a more nuanced view of why they came about in the first place, as well as why they persist, going to be helpful?
I reckon he's a scientologist.
ReplyDelete