As mounting evidence shows, the practice of busting myths – lining up facts to disprove an opponent’s false assertions – just doesn’t work. Most recently, Sharon Begley takes on the practice in Newsweek, exploring why people believe nutty stories about health care reform or supposed controversies about the president’s birth certificate. She reports that, basically, people want to believe what they want to believe and they predisposed to ignoring any facts that clash with those beliefs. In fact, she finds that we actually go out of our way to find facts that bolster our beliefs. And most people are not too picky about the source of those facts, which makes the internet an ideal tool for them.
However, it’s true that the audiences we want to reach are not usually completely opposed to our arguments and comitted to disagreeing with us regardless of the facts. Usually, we need to sway the middle, the people who haven’t necessarily made up their minds. Why not line up statistics showing how wrong opposing arguments are for them? There are a few reasons. First, even with these groups, facts are not going to be the swaying element of your argument. If they are leaning toward believing that immigration is generally bad for the country, numbers showing how much immigrants contribute to the economy are not going sway them alone. It’s important, instead, to frame arguments with the basic values that we know our audiences share. In the case of immigration, fairness is important. Numbers can then support how, because immigrants pay into a health care system, for instance, it’s only fair that they receive the benefits from it.
But with these middle audiences, there is another danger in relying on myth busting, and that’s repeating your opponent’s argument. If a series of myth busts say "immigrants do NOT commit more crimes than citizens" or "health care reform does NOT want to kill your grandmother", you have put those arguments back into print once again, with only a measely "not" separating them from your opponents. Worse, some myth busting sheets repeat the arguments word for word and the refute them. Research shows that this mainly leaves the bad argument lingering in people’s minds, not the counter. As Shankar Vedantam reports in the Washington Post:
Experiments by Ruth Mayo, a cognitive social psychologist at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, also found that for a substantial chunk of people, the "negation tag" of a denial falls off with time. Mayo’s findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 2004.
"If someone says, ‘I did not harass her,’ I associate the idea of harassment with this person," said Mayo, explaining why people who are accused of something but are later proved innocent find their reputations remain tarnished. "Even if he is innocent, this is what is activated when I hear this person’s name again.
"If you think 9/11 and Iraq, this is your association, this is what comes in your mind," she added. "Even if you say it is not true, you will eventually have this connection with Saddam Hussein and 9/11."
So what should messengers be doing? Vedantam continues:
Mayo found that rather than deny a false claim, it is better to make a completely new assertion that makes no reference to the original myth. Rather than say, as Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) recently did during a marathon congressional debate, that "Saddam Hussein did not attack the United States; Osama bin Laden did," Mayo said it would be better to say something like, "Osama bin Laden was the only person responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks" — and not mention Hussein at all.
I do realize that making the case for abolishing this practice is much like myth busting itself: facts and evidence don’t necessarily work. If you believe this practice to be effective, it’s going to be difficult to talk you out of it. So, in following the above advice, here’s what we suggest you do instead:
-Talk about values. Introduce the big value themes that are important to audiences early in your arguments to find common ground.
-Make positive assertions. Say what’s true instead of arguing about what’s not.
-Use facts to bolster values-based arguments. Facts and statistics are still important, but need to be framed in a way that 1) makes audiences care and 2) underscores why they should believe what you’ve already made them feel good about believing.
Read more at The Opportunity Agenda website.
while l agree, by and large, with the general gist of this assessment, the crux of the issue isn’t really about facts, or the framing of one’s response, it’s about differing value and belief systems. this is, in some small way, recognized by the links cited, but it’s downplayed in the final analysis.
there exists, whether one chooses to acknowledge it or not, a cognitive dissonance …to say the least…between those whose belief systems are based in reality…ie: scientifically [fact] based…and those who embrace systems based in faith…whatever that faith may be.
it can be likened to trying to argue evolution with a hard core creationist who absolutely believes the world is 6000 years old and humans rode dinosaurs. you can’t win that argument. they’re not open to nuance, it only serves to irritate them.
the key to changing the paradigm lies in educating people, and that’s an serious uphill struggle for about 1/3, or more, of our population/ culture. witness the recent madness re: obama’s speech to the schools if you need any validation.
common ground cannot and will not be found with the majority of the fanatically faithful.
the sooner we recognize that, and cease the needless compromises, which are and never will be enough, the better off we’ll, and by extension, they’ll be.
when they begin to see the benefits that will accrue to them, specifically in regard to health care, they’ll come around. until then, our energy would be better spent working as hard as possible to seeing/demanding that the rights and benefits that are required in a, so called, advanced society, are realized.
then the argument gets a lot easier.
My only question to you is, “Have you stopped beating your wife?” 😛
In all seriousness, check out Walter Lippmann’s masterpiece called “Public Opinion”. It’s free online at the Gutenberg Project. I think you might find this is nothing new.
Pax