Implanting beliefs is easier than changing them

[Cain]

Reactions of people who believed in an Al-Qaeda/Saddam link, after Bush eventually decided such a link did not exist:



Conversely...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/03/AR2007090300933.html

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.

Highlights mine.

[Requia ☣]

Reactions of people who believed in an Al-Qaeda/Saddam link, after Bush eventually decided such a link did not exist:

Source of the chart?

[Cain]

http://www.newsweek.com//frameset.aspx/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fsociology.buffalo.edu%2Fdocuments%2Fhoffmansocinquiryarticle_000.pdf

[Freeky]

This chart is probably not complicated, but I just don't understand. If you wouldn't mind (anyone), could you you explain it?

[Cain]

Only 16% change their minds, and for 14% that is out of fear of looking stupid.

[Freeky]

Heh. Thanks, Cain.

[Cramulus]

cool research--

that part about how after 40 days, an increased number of people remembered the false facts as true? That's called the sleeper effect. I did my psych research on that thing!

The most interesting part in the chart, to me, is the large slice: "Attitude Bolstering"

looking this up, it's pretty interesting. Attitude bolstering is a behavior of individuals who have done something contrary to their values. Rather than letting their values be challenged, they take actions to reestablish those values.

"threats to one's self-image caused by one's own counterattitudinal actions lead to attempts to reestablish those threatened values. "

source (interesting)

[Captain Utopia]

Jesus.  You know, it's hard to believe that future generations will look back and consider us to be sentient.

[Requia ☣]

You think this is going to get better?