… You don’t have to be Karl Rove to appreciate the obvious fact that the evidence often fails to persuade, to suspect that what really works are the tried and true methods of good advertising, emotional associations and having the bigger stick (or “super PAC”). Recently, however, some social scientists, […] Read more »
Inside the Mind of Worry
… Researchers in neuroscience, psychology, economics and other disciplines have made a range of discoveries about why human beings sometimes fear more than the evidence warrants, and sometimes less than the evidence warns. That science is worth reviewing at length. But one current issue offers a crash course in the […] Read more »
Breaking Up the Echo
… The remedy for easing … polarization, here and abroad, may seem straightforward: provide balanced information to people of all sides. … You might expect that people’s views would soften and that divisions between groups would get smaller. That is not what usually happens. On the contrary, people’s original beliefs […] Read more »
Are Independents Just Partisans In Disguise?
… Brian Nosek is a psychologist at the University of Virginia. Along with graduate student Carlee Beth Hawkins, Nosek studies why people don’t always do what they say they want to do — why there is a gap in many aspects of human behavior between what people intend to do […] Read more »
The Mind of a Flip-Flopper
… People change their minds all the time, even about very important matters. It’s just hard to do when the stakes are high. That’s why marshaling data and making rational arguments won’t work. Whether you’re changing your own mind or someone else’s, the key is emotional, persuasive storytelling. [cont.] Maggie […] Read more »
We’re All Climate-Change Idiots
… [P]eople with more hierarchical, individualistic worldviews (generally conservatives) sense that accepting climate science would lead to restraints on commerce, something they highly value, so they often dismiss evidence of the risk. Those with a more egalitarian, community-oriented mind-set (generally liberals) are likely to be suspicious of industry and very […] Read more »