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Persistence of Myths Could Alter Public Policy Approach
Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flier to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views and labeled them either “true” or “false.” Among those identified as false were statements such as “The side effects are worse than the flu” and “Only older people need flu vaccine.”
When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flier, however, he found that within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual.
Younger people did better at first, but three days later they made as many errors as older people did after 30 minutes. Most troubling was that people of all ages now felt that the source of their false beliefs was the respected CDC.
The psychological insights yielded by the research, which has been confirmed in a number of peer-reviewed laboratory experiments, have broad implications for public policy. The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths.
This phenomenon may help explain why large numbers of Americans incorrectly think that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in planning the Sept 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and that most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi. While these beliefs likely arose because Bush administration officials have repeatedly tried to connect Iraq with Sept. 11, the experiments suggest that intelligence reports and other efforts to debunk this account may in fact help keep it alive.
…The research does not absolve those who are responsible for promoting myths in the first place. What the psychological studies highlight, however, is the potential paradox in trying to fight bad information with good information.
Schwarz’s study was published this year in the journal Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, but the roots of the research go back decades. As early as 1945, psychologists Floyd Allport and Milton Lepkin found that the more often people heard false wartime rumors, the more likely they were to believe them.
The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious “rules of thumb” that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency.
(4 September 2007)
Forwarded by David Emanual who writes:
We human primates believe what we want to believe, what we need to believe. Not what is real or rational. Not what is supported by ample evidence and credible science. Not what is presented to us via good reporting (the recent Washington Post article, Talk Radio Can’t Handle the Truth is another case in point — use www.bugmenot.com to access).
That is not to say we should stop trying to connect, educate and support. But we need to remember the subjective and irrational nature of our fellow humans and temper our expectations accordingly.
Yes, it’s true that “Without papers like the Guardian, there would be no way to understand what is going on”. But I think it is equally true that what is going on in the world bares very little resemblance to what is going on inside the mind of the human primate.
BA:
I don’t think it is any surprise though that rational arguments don’t solve every problem. People in advertising and propaganda have made a science out of appealing to non-rational parts of the psyche.
However, I think it’s important to be cautious in applying the generalization too widely. What works in the NY Daily News does not work in the NY Times. (I was fascinated by the NY Daily News when I was working on Staten Island – I liked its punchy, direct style, even though I disagreed 180 degree with its politics at the time).
There are other sectors, where the rational carries much more weight. For example, among technical people or professionals. Or actually, when it comes to anything the reader is an expert on. In these areas, people tend to be critical and seek out good information.
BBC drops climate change special
John Plunkett, Guardian
The BBC has cancelled a plan for a Comic Relief-style day of programmes about environmental issues a week after it came under fire from two of its most senior news and current affairs executives over impartiality issues surrounding the TV special.
Planet Relief would have highlighted concerns about global warming and encouraged viewers to take part in a mass “switch-off” to save energy. Ricky Gervais and Graham Norton were among the celebrities mooted to take part.
However, it faced criticism from the BBC head of TV news, Peter Horrocks, and the Newsnight editor, Peter Barron, at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International Television Festival 10 days ago amid concerns that it would breach the corporation’s guidelines on impartiality.
Asked whether the BBC should campaign on issues such as climate change, Mr Horrocks told a session at the TV festival: “I absolutely don’t think we should do that because it’s not impartial. It’s not our job to lead people and proselytise about it.”
Barron added: “It is absolutely not the BBC’s job to save the planet. I think there are a lot of people who think that, but it must be stopped.”
(5 September 2007)
BBC should hang its head in shame at such a misuse of the concept of “impartiality.” See comment below from Dr. Mike Shanahan
Getting the balance wrong
The BBC’s decision not to air Planet Relief on the grounds of impartiality is a joke.
Mike Shanahan, Guardian (Comment)
…This is a joke. All the evidence points to climate change being real and happening already, to human activities being to blame, and to there being significant threats to people around the world.
Sceptics exist but they are few in number, generally unqualified to comment, and often speak with conviction but fail to disclose vested interests. By contrast, hundreds of climate scientists submit their findings to peer review and publish data to support their claims. The latest reports on the UN-mandated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change underline the seriousness of the problem and – crucially – the evidence for it.
Impartiality should be about balance, yes, but not the wilful ignorance of evidence. And not about ignoring a responsibility that we all share to avert the catastrophe that is unfolding.
How would the BBC deal with a new world war that affected every single nation on the planet? Just report the facts and the body-counts, or use its immense global influence to push for peace? If not the latter, then the BBC (motto: nation shall speak peace unto nation) needs a reality check.
BBC executives need to get out of their London offices and onto the ground in developing nations that are already feeling the impacts of climate change. Their science and environment correspondents are doing a good job, but the entire machinery of the BBC could – more than any other independent institution worldwide – really make an impact.
Dr. Mike Shanahan is the press officer at the International Institute for Environment and Development and the former news editor of SciDev.Net.
(5 September 2007)
China flexes muscles of its ‘informationised’ army
Ed Pilkington, The Guardian
· Pentagon attack part of long-running effort to breach US networks
· Hacking incidents seen as effort to develop computer warfare capability
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When the presidents of the world’s remaining superpower and the nation fast challenging for the title, George Bush of the United States and Hu Jintao of China, meet in Sydney tomorrow they had been scheduled to be talking about matters of mutual interest: trade and global warming.
Now, even if not on the formal agenda, both sides are likely to be considering the prickly issue of cyber warfare, following the revelation that the Pentagon suffered a major breach by hackers reportedly working for the Chinese military earlier this year.
Disclosure by the Financial Times that the People’s Liberation Army, or PLA, assaulted part of the Pentagon’s system used by policy advisers to the defence secretary, Robert Gates, is the latest and potentially most serious breach and set alarm bells ringing across the US military.
The Pentagon reportedly resisted the PLA onslaught for several months, but was finally penetrated, forcing a shutdown of that part of its network for a week. A spokesman would not comment on the assault or its source, but emphasised that any information obtained would have been unclassified. The timing of the attack, and the apparent involvement of the PLA, points to an escalation of anxiety in governments across the world.
Cyber warfare began with individuals, spread to criminal gangs, and is now reaching the realm of nation states.
The Chinese government denied the allegations but, tomorrow’s presidential meeting aside, Beijing is already on the defensive over its cyber activities.
(5 September 2007)
What to make of this?
Related: background article on China’s cyber-warfare strategy
