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Showing Original Post only (View all)Studies show that most Americans reject facts when [View all]
Studies show that most Americans reject facts when they are confronted with them if those facts dont reinforce their prejudices. Stories are a lot more effective, false or not, simplification or not.Researchers discover a surprising threat to democracy: our brains
Its one of the great assumptions underlying modern democracy that an informed citizenry is preferable to an uninformed one. Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government, Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789. This notion, carried down through the years, underlies everything from humble political pamphlets to presidential debates to the very notion of a free press. Mankind may be crooked timber, as Kant put it, uniquely susceptible to ignorance and misinformation, but its an article of faith that knowledge is the best remedy. If people are furnished with the facts, they will be clearer thinkers and better citizens. If they are ignorant, facts will enlighten them. If they are mistaken, facts will set them straight.
In the end, truth will out. Wont it?
Maybe not. Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. Its this: Facts dont necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.
This bodes ill for a democracy, because most voters the people making decisions about how the country runs arent blank slates. They already have beliefs, and a set of facts lodged in their minds. The problem is that sometimes the things they think they know are objectively, provably false. And in the presence of the correct information, such people react very, very differently than the merely uninformed. Instead of changing their minds to reflect the correct information, they can entrench themselves even deeper.
The general idea is that its absolutely threatening to admit youre wrong, says political scientist Brendan Nyhan, the lead researcher on the Michigan study. The phenomenon known as backfire is a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/
Oligarchy anyone?
NSA/CIA Military industrial complex?
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Just because someone sides with conservatives on a single issue like nuclear power...
kristopher
Apr 2014
#127
Thank you...It's important to note that the OP's headline is misleading, as
whathehell
Apr 2014
#133
It might be, but the subject line is entirely misleading..It says nothing about "Americans", only
whathehell
Apr 2014
#92
A perfectly reasonable hypothethis, and further studies could be done controlled for nationality.
eShirl
Apr 2014
#20
Further studies could be done controlled for nationality, but as they have NOT been,
whathehell
Apr 2014
#134
No. It really is basic psychology. And it includes everyone. Look Up- Confirmation Bias
KittyWampus
Apr 2014
#40
Your subject line is MISLEADING and you know it..The study says zero about Americans
whathehell
Apr 2014
#136
The thing is, occasionally a study will find an assumption to be incorrect against all common sense.
eShirl
Apr 2014
#52
That's intriguing. If I were to produce a study from elsewhere, would that reinforce your belief?
lumberjack_jeff
Apr 2014
#70
Her "assertions" are the simple facts of how a study is properly done, duh.
whathehell
Apr 2014
#149
Thank you. The study says NOTHING about "Americans" -- It speaks only of a human tendency
whathehell
Apr 2014
#84
Don't know much about research, do you?..Unless the study used 'control' groups of other ethnicities
whathehell
Apr 2014
#67
It is indeed very possible that this is a human trait and not specifically American
gollygee
Apr 2014
#25
We receive too much information and don't have the time to sort it all out.
A Simple Game
Apr 2014
#18
Call Out? LOL! It's a basic human condition. We all do it. It's called "Confirmation Bias".
KittyWampus
Apr 2014
#41
After we rise up and force them to enact campaign finance reform and publicly funded elections
Dustlawyer
Apr 2014
#36
We use the phrase "...but I could be wrong" a lot in my immediate family.
factsarenotfair
Apr 2014
#55
More than others?...You'll have to prove that because this study does not and doesn't even try to
whathehell
Apr 2014
#85
The problem is that most misinformed people rarely pay any consequence at all...
MrScorpio
Apr 2014
#95
See what you want to see. Hear what you want to hear. A trick as old as time itself.
blkmusclmachine
Apr 2014
#106
One of the many reasons why the RW has used polarization as a central strategy since
wiggs
Apr 2014
#108
This piece covers the issue very well: The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science.
HuckleB
Apr 2014
#151