People like to live within their comfort zones. I remember a study being referenced that claimed to show introducing facts contrary to a person’s existing viewpoint don’t get them to change, it just made them double-down and be more defensive.
Oh look, misinformation, lol. The study was about how science communication is based on outdated ideas and that simply presenting facts is not as effective as whole-person education. The media seems to have just read the title and maybe abstract, and ran with “you can’t change minds, stop trying”, when that’s not what it concluded.
Facts will not always change minds, but there is promise that other things will, including creating spaces for group dialogue and debate, targeting emotions and embodied knowledge, embracing multiple perspectives, altering environments to create new behaviors, and being strategic about whom we seek to target with our message. We need to provide training for our students in cognitive and behavioral science, as human attitudes and actions are both the primary cause of and the solution to the current conservation crisis (Nielsen et al., 2021).
I remember a study being referenced that claimed to show introducing facts contrary to a person’s existing viewpoint don’t get them to change, it just made them double-down and be more defensive.
To be fair, this is exactly what they said. Facts alone are not enough - you need rhetoric. So, not misinformation.
That is not what the study said though. OP said that introducing facts causes people to double down and doesn’t get them to change, when the study says that introducing facts only works a percentage of the time.
Facts alone sometimes works, but it’s more effective when combined with other strategies. Saying facts alone doesn’t work, is misinfo.
Fair enough. However, I was under the interpretation that evidence remains the same either way; it is the way it is presented that affects the likelihood of someone changing their mind. Presenting the evidence by itself may have a small chance at a positive effect, while including proper rhetoric lowers the negative and increases positive chance.
Therefore evidence should always be presented “correctly” to avoid setbacks, and the takeaways are thus functionally identical.
I mean I get your point, and I’m sure it’s more nuanced than this and depends on a whole host of other factors like whether it’s a politically charged topic (deoxygenated blood being blue vs HRT actually working), emotional state, connection to other core beliefs (like religious ones), etc. some or all of which are mentioned in the study.
Like I’m sure for topics that aren’t really important, just presenting the correct fact is enough to adjust most people’s view, unless they are particularly stubborn. Like saying “peeing on a jellyfish sting doesn’t really help actually” will usually be met with “oh, huh, I didn’t know that”. But even something as simple as saying “the earth isn’t flat” will make some people very angry. Start listing facts for a more complex topic like climate change, economics, or sociology and people will absolutely double down on whatever black-and-white viewpoint they already hold.
But yeah sure enough, they shouldn’t have used an absolute qualifier I guess.
Therefore evidence should always be presented “correctly” to avoid setbacks, and the takeaways are thus functionally identical.
The problem that you’re running into here, is that there is no “correct” method to avoid setbacks. It is not possible to have a 100% rate of efficacy when dealing with such a diverse group as the entirety of the human race. Even the study mentions that methods will need to vary depending on who you’re talking to, and it’s likely that methods will need to be changed or adapted as demographics change or new knowledge is reached.
Well yeah like I said, of course different people are gonna have different standards. A scientist will look at evidence very differently from a conspiracy nut, and reaching them requires vastly different approaches.
And even within those demographics, people vary. I used to do palliative care for developmentally disabled adults, and I swear to god, sometimes it was easier to get an intellectually delayed individual with dementia to understand something than their doctor.
Like, I took a client in for heartburn once, except they didn’t understand what the doctor meant when he said “heartburn” because they thought he was talking about heart problems and they were adamant that it was stomach related. The damn doctor tried to write it off as a somatic complaint, when the client had a history of reflux disease, because the client insisted they felt food moving up and down their throat and they were adamant it had nothing to do with their heart.
It’s turned me into a bit of a wonk when it comes to science communication.
I honestly have no idea how people can live like that. Yet I see it so often that I’m convinced it’s the norm.
People like to live within their comfort zones. I remember a study being referenced that claimed to show introducing facts contrary to a person’s existing viewpoint don’t get them to change, it just made them double-down and be more defensive.
Oh look, misinformation, lol. The study was about how science communication is based on outdated ideas and that simply presenting facts is not as effective as whole-person education. The media seems to have just read the title and maybe abstract, and ran with “you can’t change minds, stop trying”, when that’s not what it concluded.
To quote from the conclusion of the study itself:
To be fair, this is exactly what they said. Facts alone are not enough - you need rhetoric. So, not misinformation.
That is not what the study said though. OP said that introducing facts causes people to double down and doesn’t get them to change, when the study says that introducing facts only works a percentage of the time.
Facts alone sometimes works, but it’s more effective when combined with other strategies. Saying facts alone doesn’t work, is misinfo.
Edit: clarifying pronouns
Fair enough. However, I was under the interpretation that evidence remains the same either way; it is the way it is presented that affects the likelihood of someone changing their mind. Presenting the evidence by itself may have a small chance at a positive effect, while including proper rhetoric lowers the negative and increases positive chance.
Therefore evidence should always be presented “correctly” to avoid setbacks, and the takeaways are thus functionally identical.
I mean I get your point, and I’m sure it’s more nuanced than this and depends on a whole host of other factors like whether it’s a politically charged topic (deoxygenated blood being blue vs HRT actually working), emotional state, connection to other core beliefs (like religious ones), etc. some or all of which are mentioned in the study.
Like I’m sure for topics that aren’t really important, just presenting the correct fact is enough to adjust most people’s view, unless they are particularly stubborn. Like saying “peeing on a jellyfish sting doesn’t really help actually” will usually be met with “oh, huh, I didn’t know that”. But even something as simple as saying “the earth isn’t flat” will make some people very angry. Start listing facts for a more complex topic like climate change, economics, or sociology and people will absolutely double down on whatever black-and-white viewpoint they already hold.
But yeah sure enough, they shouldn’t have used an absolute qualifier I guess.
The problem that you’re running into here, is that there is no “correct” method to avoid setbacks. It is not possible to have a 100% rate of efficacy when dealing with such a diverse group as the entirety of the human race. Even the study mentions that methods will need to vary depending on who you’re talking to, and it’s likely that methods will need to be changed or adapted as demographics change or new knowledge is reached.
Well yeah like I said, of course different people are gonna have different standards. A scientist will look at evidence very differently from a conspiracy nut, and reaching them requires vastly different approaches.
And even within those demographics, people vary. I used to do palliative care for developmentally disabled adults, and I swear to god, sometimes it was easier to get an intellectually delayed individual with dementia to understand something than their doctor.
Like, I took a client in for heartburn once, except they didn’t understand what the doctor meant when he said “heartburn” because they thought he was talking about heart problems and they were adamant that it was stomach related. The damn doctor tried to write it off as a somatic complaint, when the client had a history of reflux disease, because the client insisted they felt food moving up and down their throat and they were adamant it had nothing to do with their heart.
It’s turned me into a bit of a wonk when it comes to science communication.