How to change the mind of the wingnuts - psychology

[Rhea]

This letter was published at electoral-vote.com today, and it introduced some useful methods to consider whenever you are trying to persuade anyone, but particularly trying to persuade someone who holds untrue beliefs.

A.C. in Aachen, Germany, writes: Being into social psychology quite a bit, I very much liked your overview of the theory of cognitive dissonance in response to the question about why Trump's support is so consistent with his base. As the theory is so influential (more than 1,000 studies over the decades), I would like to add a few aspects and widen the scope of the answer.

You talked about how dissonance might be reduced, but I think this deserves a closer look. Festinger (who developed the theory) assumed that people use the path that requires the least change of affected cognitions. There are basically three ways to reduce dissonance:

Addition of consonant information, e.g. finding ways to support the decision (he appointed judges, cut taxes, owned the Liberals etc.)

Subtract dissonant information, e.g. weaken the notion that Trump is a moron (smear campaign, liberal hoax, witch hunt, biased media, ignoring or not perceiving facts etc.)

Change of behavior, which in this case would mean not to favor Trump any longer and probably not vote for him again.
Given the high level of commitment in a very polarized elecorate, it's plausible to believe that many voters will not chose the third path, as the number of cognitions to be rearranged would be quite high. It demands much less cognitive effort to follow the first path, the second path, or both.

That said, the theory also suggests that different outcomes might take place depending on what lines of attack are used during the campaign. It doesn't make sense to reach out to hardcore Trumpers; for them the change in the cognitive system is far too large. But independents, old-school Republicans and Democrats who voted Trump in 2016 might well be persuadable. For them, I think the challenge is to frame the message in an way that allows persuadable voters to change to the Democrats without having to change cognitions too much. "Trump is an idiot, you see it yourself, and we told you all along" would not do the job. On the other hand, something like "we understand that there might have been reasons to vote Trump then, but we got your message, we changed, its okay to vote Democrats this year." Of course, this messaging would cause dissonance for the progressive wing of the Democratic party, but there is always some amount of 3D chess involved.

V & Z respond: The term that many commenters use these days for this way of thinking is "permission structure," and it's clearly the basis of what the folks at the Lincoln Project are doing.

It would be interesting to discuss the psychology of how to break through the mind traps that people get themselves into.

"You can't reason a man out of a corner that he didn't reason his way into."

 

[rousseau]

I largely don't think you do change the mind of wing-nuts, for a number of reasons. One of the bigger ones is that a major component of political affiliation is genetically inherited. That is our brains are often wired to lean toward the left or right. If we're talking 'wing' nuts, I'd guess it follows that those with a strong propensity for one wing are even more so genetically inclined. It's not something they've consciously reasoned, it's how they experience and understand the world.

Once you couple that with being dis-incentivized to change their mind, because all of their friends and family believe the same things, you're basically lost.

I may be the pessimist but if 'changing the world', 'supporting humanity' were as easy as making posts and talking on the internet, we would have solved the world's problems by now. To me the reality is that most of our political problems have roots much deeper than human epistemology, and it's a bit anthropocentric to think that we can control the arc of our own history simply by talking to each other. Maybe to an extent, but the underlying forces of history are much, much more powerful than anything we can do as individuals.

 

[Rhea]

I'm thinking of it more from an academic/therapeutic standpoint. The goal is not so much to "change their mind" as to understand HOW science/experience/therapy would suggest is the most probably approach.

Then even if one does not wish to pursue to the end, one at least knows what will NOT work.

 

[rousseau]

I'm thinking of it more from an academic/therapeutic standpoint. The goal is not so much to "change their mind" as to understand HOW science/experience/therapy would suggest is the most probably approach.

Then even if one does not wish to pursue to the end, one at least knows what will NOT work.

Well, in your letter the sociologist seems to be on to something - the more work one has to do to change their belief, the less likely they are to do so. Put another way, people need a hard, strong material incentive to do something other than what they've already been doing.

That leads into my point, I think, that there are generally more powerful factors than epistemology at play. The assumption that political orientations and decisions have anything to do with rational thought, and rational discourse, is far over-simplified, imo. Members at this very forum are a case in point - people who have been unable to see reason or change in any fundamental way for years and years. This is because their core beliefs, their core outlook, their core experience of the world, largely dictates what they feel and what they believe.

When Trump was elected it was largely because he offered conservatives a material incentive - beat down people of colour - and his opponent wasn't strong enough to beat him. When Obama was elected it was because he was a strong candidate, and people believed he would make their lives better. In either case I doubt that political discourse had much, if any impact on either outcome.

So I think if you do want to change someone's mind about something you need to appeal to their self-interest, and the incentive that you're offering needs to be a bigger factor than all of the underlying, pre-existing forces already at play. Unfortunately, people also have very little to lose by voting the same way election after election. There is basically no downside to not changing when your vote is one of millions, so to ask someone to fundamentally change their perspective is asking a lot.

 

[fromderinside]

The further north I've lived the more liberal the socio-political environment. That includes ND/SD, Michigan, Maine, Montana and I-duh-ho. More partying in the south with less barn raising. Much more noes-in-the-air in the south with hate the new testament religion.

Observations of one whose been there done that.

Self interest is driven by temperature and humidity more than it is by principles or mores is my starting point.

 

[southernhybrid]

I don't know how this could be a regional thing, since all of my black friends and acquaintances are Democrats and while most of my white friends are Democrats too, I do know that most of the white people in my town are Republicans.

I think political ideology has more to do with what one values or who one hates. Most Republicans aren't voting in their best interested these days. I say this because I have known many who were on SS and Medicare or worked in low paying jobs, but are hard core Trump supporters. My one "friend" who is a Trump supporter has become a true wingnut. I'm not sure that I can think of her as a friend anymore. We weren't that close to begin with, just both nurses who worked in the same place briefly. That and being female were about the only things that we had in common. She's also a conservative Christian who believes that if she keeps praying she will find a man to take care of her etc.

Last month we had a little discussion about the pandemic and such. She doesn't trust the CDC, or The WHO and she doesn't believe that wearing a mask or socially distancing is necessary. She thinks that China wants to kill all of us and the virus was developed in a Chinese lab purposely. It's too painful to think that an RN, who took all those science courses and who's work involves applied science, can believe the stuff that she does.The woman is poor, has to work part time just to pay her bills. She's on Medicare and her primary source of income is SS. Yet, she's a huge fan of Trump and Fox News. You can't reason with someone like that.

My sister lives in an. uppity little town in New Jersey. She really can't afford to live there, to be honest. She's a Democrat but she's told me that many of her neighbors are Trump supporters. Her two is all white. In fact, I seriously doubt that there is a single black resident in her town. So, why are all these white people so nutty? Are they racists? Do they think that Trump has their best interests? Are they anti abortion? I don't get it. And, I doubt you can change someone like that.

 

[Treedbear]

...
Self interest is driven by temperature and humidity more than it is by principles or mores is my starting point.

If you mean narrow minded, unimaginative thinking is the result of an over-heated brain I think you're exactly right. In an era of global warming that's a problem.

 

[bigfield]

Are swing voters even worth the trouble?

Each party is looking to increase their share of the vote, but they don't necessarily have to steal voters from the other party. They can pick up more voters from the massive pool of people who don't vote at all. Why bother trying to turn a self-identifying Republican into a Democrat, or vice versa, when you can recruit people who currently have no party alignment?

As the letter points out, any attempt to swing some votes also runs the risk of alienating supporters.

 

[Shobha]

A lot of it is just in-group conformance. The group you identify with, and feel that you belong to etc, is the group whose ideas and philosophy you want to share. And this is not some average or moderate position. It has to be an extreme position, in order to differentiate you from the other groups. So even the borderline or moderate folks get polarised. It is just Us vs. Them and Conforming to Group norms. Just the context varies.

 

[Tigers!]

I'd open the bowling by not calling them wingnuts myself.

 

[Jokodo]

I largely don't think you do change the mind of wing-nuts, for a number of reasons. One of the bigger ones is that a major component of political affiliation is genetically inherited.

The history of human migrations tells a different story.

Some of the reddest counties in the eastern half of the US are in the Appalachia region - in large part settled by settlers from the Scottish Lowlands. Some of the bluest patches are the very places where Polish and Irish Catholic immigrants make up a large proportion of the current population's ancestral stock.

If you know the first thing about European politics, you'll recognise that present-day Poland and Ireland are much more conservative than present-day Scotland, and the Lowlands in particular. Now, unless you want to claim that Poland and Ireland selectively saw the more liberal part of their population emigrate, and the Lowlands selectively parted with their more conservative denizens, you got a problem.

If you do claim that, I'd like some evidence. Actual evidence, not vaguely related studies that don't really show what you're claiming but make it seem somewhat plausible when coupled with a few additional assumptions you also find plausible.

 

[fromderinside]

Yet if one goes vote by vote, neighborhood by neighborhood, generation by generation, one finds strong family traditions of political bent. Conditions in neighborhoods tend to persist for some time - generations - until new conditions arise.

I expect you are both right, wrong, probably irrelevant. Seems the intent of the thread is explore ways to change minds.

To that end I'd replace 'traps' with rationalizations linked to strong biasing influences. Certainly the very way I've constructed that implies there are mechanisms through which one routes experience. Mechanisms which hold important persona land community value in individuals which the founder of sociology,  Kurt Lewin, developed  Hodological space with which to work them out.

 

[rousseau]

I largely don't think you do change the mind of wing-nuts, for a number of reasons. One of the bigger ones is that a major component of political affiliation is genetically inherited.

The history of human migrations tells a different story.

Some of the reddest counties in the eastern half of the US are in the Appalachia region - in large part settled by settlers from the Scottish Lowlands. Some of the bluest patches are the very places where Polish and Irish Catholic immigrants make up a large proportion of the current population's ancestral stock.

If you know the first thing about European politics, you'll recognise that present-day Poland and Ireland are much more conservative than present-day Scotland, and the Lowlands in particular. Now, unless you want to claim that Poland and Ireland selectively saw the more liberal part of their population emigrate, and the Lowlands selectively parted with their more conservative denizens, you got a problem.

If you do claim that, I'd like some evidence. Actual evidence, not vaguely related studies that don't really show what you're claiming but make it seem somewhat plausible when coupled with a few additional assumptions you also find plausible.

I don't even know how to begin to respond to this post. If you're interested in my argument, do some searching on political affiliation and genetic inheritance. Studies exist which link behaviour at an early age to political affiliation later in life, IOW a large part of the affiliation is not learned. Political identity is most certainly malleable, but largely fixed.

If this weren't the case we would see much more variation in how specific communities voted - unless you'd like to attribute that entirely to social causes (I don't).

 

[southernhybrid]

If this weren't the case we would see much more variation in how specific communities voted - unless you'd like to attribute that entirely to social causes (I don't).

I agree to a certain extent but what people seem to forget is that race and ethnicity have a lot to do with how people vote as well. I live in a black majority town, where most of the white people, ( other than my friends ) are Republicans and most of the black people are Democrats. Imo, my black friends are more thoughtful when it comes to politics. They vote for the things that improve their situations. They support programs like SS, Medicare, Medicaid, women's right to choose, and reasonable gun control.

The Republicans that I know are usually gun fanatics, very anti choice, and even when they depend on social programs, they don't seem to take them into consideration when they vote.

The wealthy people where I live primarily care about lower taxes and limiting regulation. But, I also have white friends who have terrible family relations since trump was elected. For example, one female friend is a very liberal atheist, but her husband is a Trump supporting Christian. This last election has damaged there relationship.

So, how do we explain that? I live in a small southern city that has a large diversity of opinion when it comes to politics. Plus, too many poor people simply never vote. I know lots of them too. One of my closest black friends has told me that her two middle aged children have never, ever voted. I also know a poor white woman who hates Trump but refuses to vote and has never votes. What's up with that?

 

[rousseau]

If this weren't the case we would see much more variation in how specific communities voted - unless you'd like to attribute that entirely to social causes (I don't).

I agree to a certain extent but what people seem to forget is that race and ethnicity have a lot to do with how people vote as well. I live in a black majority town, where most of the white people, ( other than my friends ) are Republicans and most of the black people are Democrats. Imo, my black friends are more thoughtful when it comes to politics. They vote for the things that improve their situations. They support programs like SS, Medicare, Medicaid, women's right to choose, and reasonable gun control.

The Republicans that I know are usually gun fanatics, very anti choice, and even when they depend on social programs, they don't seem to take them into consideration when they vote.

The wealthy people where I live primarily care about lower taxes and limiting regulation. But, I also have white friends who have terrible family relations since trump was elected. For example, one female friend is a very liberal atheist, but her husband is a Trump supporting Christian. This last election has damaged there relationship.

So, how do we explain that? I live in a small southern city that has a large diversity of opinion when it comes to politics. Plus, too many poor people simply never vote. I know lots of them too. One of my closest black friends has told me that her two middle aged children have never, ever voted. I also know a poor white woman who hates Trump but refuses to vote and has never votes. What's up with that?

It can be explained because political affiliation isn't completely genetic, it also has a malleable component which I hit on when I first posted in the thread. Above all people vote for what they believe is in their own interests. In the U.S. the Republican party is explicitly not a party for poor, minorities, so we should expect them to lean away from voting that way.

But if, for example, you held a theoretical democratic election in a majority-black country where sub-ethnicities weren't a factor, you would likely see much more variation in opinion, and much more consistency along genetic lines.

 

[fromderinside]

Genetic outcomes are the outcome of random experiments. To suggest that political preferences are genetically determined suggests political preferences have been a thing for thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years. I'm pretty sure authoritarian regimes of various sorts were the thing during late probably varying between strength and wit dominance during the hunter gatherer era. Mind really began to matter when agriculture came on the scene. Now we're moving into an abundance catastrophe capability era.

Do you actually think genetics is leading this evolution? Politics is a process where choice enters into social decisions. Social decisions are rightly likely to be common preference molded. However common preference changes with the weather, or any survival factor, literally. Such is not genetic determination.

Humans have been in a rapidly evolving mode for the last two million years suggesting continued stress on fitness. Constancy isn't among the things that cause genetic tendencies to vary. So any notion that such as politics, a fairly recent happenstance among humans, is driving choice seems a bit far fetched.

 

[rousseau]

Genetic outcomes are the outcome of random experiments. To suggest that political preferences are genetically determined suggests political preferences have been a thing for thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of years. I'm pretty sure authoritarian regimes of various sorts were the thing during late probably varying between strength and wit dominance during the hunter gatherer era. Mind really began to matter when agriculture came on the scene. Now we're moving into an abundance catastrophe capability era.

Do you actually think genetics is leading this evolution? Politics is a process where choice enters into social decisions. Social decisions are rightly likely to be common preference molded. However common preference changes with the weather, or any survival factor, literally. Such is not genetic determination.

Humans have been in a rapidly evolving mode for the last two million years suggesting continued stress on fitness. Constancy isn't among the things that cause genetic tendencies to vary. So any notion that such as politics, a fairly recent happenstance among humans, is driving choice seems a bit far fetched.

I haven't claimed that political preferences are genetically determined, I've claimed that they're partially genetically determined. This isn't a personal theory, this is a topic I've researched, the literature exists. I'd suggest starting here.

Political orientation is obviously very complex and shouldn't be looked at along a single pole, like genetic predisposition. But if we're talking about how to change the mind of people on the wings, it is a factor. To some degree we're born with a specific neural configuration that experiences and responds to the world in a specific way. Our attitude, for example, toward people of other races, people in foreign cultures, is likely colored by our openness to experience, with obvious implications.

 

[fromderinside]

Some things are irrefutable. Segregation, isolation, of groups produces differences between groups over time. NS performs difference analysis. Und zo weiter.

That these things are important to forming bases for political stance is also irrefutable.

Now if you are trying to say that within these structures there are genetic trends toward fragmentation (variability) of behavior within these features are we really talking about genetics? Or are we talking about the effects of other genetic influences on the expression of these irrefutables? I suggest these influences are transitory rather than determined, a part of adaptation in niches, rather than something transmitted across generations.

That is not to say that the power of basic tendencies aren't possibly changed overtime, rather they are found aschangeinother tendencies rather than in basic features of recognition and separation.

Such doesn't add up to partial genetic determination of political view.

You may disagree, but I think the following from Genetics of Human Social Behavior https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627310001376

make my points.

Politics

“Man is, by nature, a political animal.” —Aristotle

​

A recent review (Fowler and Schreiber, 2008)* discusses the evidence that some of our most cherished political beliefs and behaviors may have a genetic basis. Twin studies have suggested that liberal and conservative ideologies are heritable, albeit genes did not play a role in the choice of any particular political party (Alford et al., 2005, Hatemi et al., 2007)**. Further investigations showed that genes and environment jointly contributed to political behavior (Fowler et al., 2008)***. Interestingly, value priorities (basic personal values referring to the broad goals to which people attribute importance as guiding principles in their lives, e.g., tradition, benevolence, hedonism) have been shown to underlie political attitudes and behaviors (Caprara et al., 2006, Nir and Knafo, 2009)****. Recent research shows that value priorities are moderately (11%–38%) heritable (Schermer et al., 2008)*****.

(following is presented as a personal exercise)

* Biology, Politics, and the EmergingScience of Human Nature https://media.rickhanson.net/home/files/papers/Evolution&Politics.pdf

** Are Political Orientations Genetically Transmitted? https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1006&context=poliscifacpub

*** Genetic Variation in Political Participation http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.168.1467&rep=rep1&type=pdf

**** Personality and Politics: Values, Traits, andPolitical Choice http://www.iowapbs.org/mtom/story/24493/oregon-case-jury-delivers-blow-government-lands-fight
and Reason within PassionValues as Motivational Anchors of Israeli Opinionon the 2006 Lebanon War and Ceasefire https://d1wqtxts1xzle7.cloudfront.n...maia7YjIwA__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJLOHF5GGSLRBV4ZA

*****Phenotypic, Genetic, and EnvironmentalProperties of the Portrait ValuesQuestionnair https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/474f/0909a7cb6e698f657240b1ed9c3878d101e7.pdf

 

[rousseau]

Now if you are trying to say that within these structures there are genetic trends toward fragmentation (variability) of behavior within these features are we really talking about genetics? Or are we talking about the effects of other genetic influences on the expression of these irrefutables?

Yea that's a good way of putting it. A family of two conservative parents, and five children - I don't believe it's determined how all of their children will turn out, but I do believe that there will be tendencies after the fact.

So bringing it back to the topic at hand - if you're talking to someone who's devoutly religious, racist, traditionalist, xenophobic - these traits aren't something you can just explain away. Sometimes you can. But usually the behaviours arise from fundamental aspects of personality - people who are racist want to be racist, it's not a rationally chosen position.

Such tendencies don't guarantee political affiliation, but if we're talking an explicitly racist party there might be some overlap.

Similarly if someone is naturally empathic they'll lean progressive.

 

[fromderinside]

Actually I'd look first at testosterone/estrogen and adrenaline levels to determine whether I should look to education and family as follow ups. Actually good squirt analysis is recommended for most behavioral pathologies IMHO and IMHE. Wingnut is subsumed under emotional extemesist by many.

BTW if one lives in a community dominated by bullies and they burn crosses in front yards being a racist is probably a very rational move by white males in particular. Invisibility helps.

Back in school daze during the fifties in Kennewick, a wheat town, it was easier being a racist since there were no targets living in town. Sure we had one black working in the hotel downtown and another as custodian at the cemetary out by our place. It helped with the hatred of people in neighboring towns of Pasco, a railroad town, and Richland, the Atomic City, which had sizable minority population, more than 3%.

A woman neighbor chased the custodian of the cemetary down 10th avenue, our street, with a cleaver. She was cut off by several men in the neighborhood, dad included, who took the cleaver from her and restrained her until the police arrived.

They promptly arrested the black guy for disturbing the peace. Yeah. He disturbed the police by calling out for help as the woman chased him down the street.

The same men who restrained the lady testified for the black man in court and he got off without further action. Kept his job too.

Now there's a rich learning experience and another bit of crud to throw into the tendencies chipper. In fact I hadn't thought about race before that event. I was 15 at the time, but things became pretty clear from that seminal event.