This is a big goddamn topic, and I’m not any type of vetted academic or anything. I do believe, though, that we claim to live in a data-driven world and actually live in a belief-driven world. The people who truly live in a data-driven world are taking buyouts from Google and Amazon at age 45; they’re not writing articles for Forbes. Ya dig?
Anyway, here’s something new from The Conversation on narrative and belief across the political spectrum. Let’s tee this up a little bit:
We asked 913 American adults to read an excerpt from an article debunking a common misconception, such as the existence of “lucky streaks” in games of chance. The article quoted a scientist explaining why people hold the misconception – for instance, people tend to see patterns in random data. The article also included a dissenting voice that drew from personal experience – such as someone claiming to have seen lucky streaks firsthand.
Our participants read one of two versions of the article. One version presented the dissenting voice as a quote from someone with relevant professional experience but no scientific expertise, such as a casino manager. In the other version, the dissenting opinion was a comment at the bottom from a random previous participant in our study who also disagreed with the scientist but had no clearly relevant expertise – analogous to a random poster in the comment section of an online article.
OK, so 913 isn’t a huge sample size. Basically what we’re doing here is presenting straight facts/expertise vs. “a personal voice.” What’s going to win out? Glad you asked.
Looking at both our studies together, while about three-quarters of liberals rated the researcher as more legitimate, just over half of conservatives did. Additionally, about two-thirds of those who favored the anecdotal voice were conservative. Our data also showed that conservatives’ tendency to trust their intuitions accounted for the ideological split.
I think we broadly realize that expertise matters less right now than it once did, to the point that some have even argued we are “Post-Expertise.” All you really need to do is look at different reactions to COVID to see those splits.
Paul Krugman has talked about “the right relying on fake experts,” which is definitely true of the Trump era but maybe a little liberal feces-hurling above that. A 2005 article in The New York Times — liberal rag! (just kidding) — noted that evolution and climate had become polarized issues, which is still true nearly 16 years later, and probably always will be true. There is a seeming conservative focus towards “both sides of an argument,” which I tend to see as a self-preservation thing that allows them to “own the libs,” who operate more on emotion, generally. But maybe I’m wrong.
Social scientists are already documenting ideological reactions to the pandemic that fit our findings. For example, many conservatives see the coronavirus as less of a threat and are more susceptible to misinformation. They also tend to see preventive efforts as less effective.
Now we bring in the personal narrative part of it
Out of the 57 million Trump hot takes in a given day these last few years, here’s one that came up sometimes, but also got lost other times: he never really wore a mask, and that emboldened his people (his “cult,” if you will) to not wear one either. Biden always wears a mask, and there’s some hope — belief? — that seeing a top national leader wear one will trickle down to others. I’d say “good luck” with that theory, but hey, maybe.
You see this shit all the time at work too. It’s all about what the top dogs do. They set the cadence of the place and they show you what is and is not tolerated. Their words might lean one way about mission, vision, purpose, passion, and great place to work, great compensation, etc. In reality they only care about their lieutenants and their sales team, and will avoid eye contact with you at all costs. We’ve all worked in those places.
The narrative we get from the top drives our true belief in the place, ultimately, despite what “data” someone wants to throw at us regarding how well we did last year, how great the culture is, etc.
Where’s the gap in research?
I’d say there are probably two gaps:
- We need better models for communicating uncertainty, which you see a lot in business and you definitely saw with COVID. When scientific modeling or even business projections aren’t perfect/right, how do we still convince people that Course A is the right course?
- We need a better understanding of how to move a person’s thinking even slightly in a different direction without a monumental life event. For example, you get fired, you get divorced, your mom passes away, etc… those things really make you consider the moment. Day-to-day, who is considering the moment, especially with 47 specialized news channels for you to consider? Right. This idea of “latitude of acceptance” could help, but if you’re pretty dug in on “Obama wasn’t born here” or “The path to growth is XYZ,” I would highly doubt that new data is going to change that. You need to change beliefs, and I think those only change via narrative or truly-effective leadership.
Your takes?
