Fighting psychological biases

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Okay. How. Do. We. Stop. This? There are people out there who have no problem believing that Osama bin Laden was dead before the raid on his life and that he is still alive now, because believing the government can apparently bring people back from the dead to maintain a news story is fine with them if it fits into the narrative of the official story being a lie.

How do you combat this? Do you guys have any success stories of people who held totally irrational beliefs with utter conviction being eased out of them? Please share any such stories or insights, cuz the world needs em.

I'm not sure this is as dramatic as some of the things you were mentioning, but back in 2010, I was doing some canvassing for Russ Feingold. I knocked on one guy's door who told me that, while he had been an independent in the past, he was going to vote a straight Republican ticket that year because the Democratic party had been taken over by socalistic death-panel-loving elitist radicals. Rather than indulging my first instinct (to say NO THAT'S BATSHIT INSANE, which would have gotten me nowhere), I emphasized the way that Feingold had broken with the leadership of his party (being a defecit hawk, supporting Second Amendment rights, and so on.) I even mentioned that I personally was a moderate, not a liberal, and that this was a reason why I admired Feingold's independence (not saying, however, that I was voting a straight Democratic ticket that year because the Republicans were so repulsive). By the end of the conversation, I had gotten him to admit that he was wrong to have lumped Feingold in with the other Democrats, and that he would vote for him in the election. (Perhaps a Phyrric victory, given the other races on the ticket, but I'll take what I can get.)

Bottom line: people latch on to crazy beliefs because they support larger cognitive frames that they hold. I think it's really hard to change those frames completely, but an understanding of them might help you to strengthen or weaken support for an issue. In my case, I was able to take someone who had a 'liberals are bad' frame and, by playing up Feingold's independence, get him to classify him as a non-liberal, and therefore someone who was not an extremist and who he might vote for. (I've heard of some similar successes of religious liberals talking religious conservatives out of hardcore libertarian economic positions by playing a 'what would Jesus do' card.)

As I say, perhaps this is not exactly what you're looking for — but it's the closest I can think of.

So fight existing biases by playing other biases off against them. That's...a depressing solution.

Honestly, all of our views are biased to some degree — in the sense that none of us knows the entire truth, and all of us use certain conceptual frames to make sense of what is a pretty confusing world. That's not to say that we can't continually refine our frames (we should), but it is good to be aware of this limitation, and realize that a lot of what we consider to be 'facts' are simply things that fit into our frames.

I'm not a post-modernist — I do believe there is truth out there — but I accept to a certain degree the post-modern critique of how easy it is to take a proposition as 'objective knowledge' when it is anything but.

Well yeah, but there is such a thing as objectively verifiable knowledge. Empirical rationalism works. How you get people to learn and employ the skill of empirical rationalism is the trick.

I have a bias to believe I'm right. The standard of proof to get me to change my mind is unfairly weighted towards what I already believe. Personally I find this convenient since I don't need to constantly stop and examine everything I think I know, but it's certainly a bias.

It's not just conspiracy theorists, everyone holds values irrationally, to a certain extent. I mean, lets face it, sometimes it's not a bad thing that nobody can convince you that commiting X moral depravity is ok. There is always going to be someone who is better at arguing something than you are, but that doesn't mean you should then go and conform to their biases.

Obviously that's not always the case, but I always figured you should start with yourself, and then try to work on others.

edited 31st Jan '12 10:21:09 AM by MrAHR

Some articles that might be helpful:

The Backfire Effect

Confirmation Bias

And yet, it's the most effective.

The thing is, we all have biases. How we arrive at and develop them are different, but the exist. However, empirical study shows that some of them are definitely more beneficial to society or individuals than others. The problem isn't having biases; it's having an irrational bias and continuing to hold it in the face of damage to yourself or others.

I think the trick to talking someone out of an irrational bias is to do what Bhokura did; talk to the other person calmly and rationally, and try to find out why they think a certain way. You can't really talk a person out of a particular stance if you don't know why they hold that stance. And figuring that out also lets you explain your stance in terms that they'll better relate to. This, of course, is all helped if you're a skilled debater and speaker. I myself would probably not get my point across very well, not being that, and not really having the patience to put up with people who hold beliefs I believe to be idiotic.

How do we combat this? Like so many things in this world we shouldn't. Instead put effort into keeping yourself properly informed to the point that you can provide information to those around you, determine what the absolutely best action to take from both ethical and logical stand points first. Provide as much of the whole picture you can get, but if people around you still want to believe that Lance Armstrong was developed in a bunker, that Lee Harvey Oswald knew too much, and that JFK shot him because of it, just let them unless you think it will impair or harm your life or rights, or if you have run it through your head that that it is the most ethically logically correct thing to do.

Kill them all.

edited 7th Feb '12 11:32:25 PM by Natasel

I'm not sure they even should be actively countered. The very fact that an official body would make the attempt to 'squash' your theory can and will be seen as proof that you were correct.

The best way is just to supply the information you want, without targeting it specifically at them. This way, maybe enough routes will connect with them at varying times from varying sources so the penny has a chance to sink in. If not, well — they probably aren't ever going to give up their tin foil hat. And, probably need some rather intense, professional intervention.

Tin hats can be a sign of a number of underlying problems, none fixable by an information campaign alone.

edited 7th Feb '12 11:52:04 PM by Euodiachloris

I'm not so sure about this — the problem is that if left alone, the tin hats can win. And I, for one, think the world would have been a better place if this hadn't happened in Russia in 1917 or Germany in 1933.

It might not always be possible, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try our damndest to counter such messages.

Uhhhhhh - I didn't say you shouldn't get your information out there. But, once you start targeting it specifically at them, you'd be surprised how quickly they'll pick up on it. These are people who see conspiracy everywhere.

Sorry if I was unclear.