Debunking “debunking”

Why facts don’t persuade people

Photo credit: Bob Burg

Dear readers,

I’m delighted to share a work today from Erica Etelson, an author, co-founder of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative, and fellow contributor to The Liberal Patriot. Erica has written a wonderful piece that touches on many of the themes of this blog, including listening to and empathizing with people who hold different beliefs than we do. I hope you find it as interesting and informative as I did.

-MB

---

There are few things liberal activists enjoy more than a thorough debunking of right-wing talking points. My inbox is full of emails urging me to check out the latest clever fact sheet, webinar, or video rebutting “Republican lies” about this, that, or the other thing. Last month, for example, the New York City comptroller released a report called, “Facts Not Fear: How Welcoming Immigrants Benefits New York City.” Even the Biden campaign has gotten in on the fun with a Thanksgiving missive guaranteed to turn your holiday table into a scene from Succession.

Debunking the opposition’s “wrongthink” is worse than an exercise in futility; it entrenches the very beliefs it seeks to discredit.

I’ve read a number of persuasion studies, and they’re pretty unequivocal:

Both liberals and conservatives believe that using facts in political discussions helps to foster mutual respect, but 15 studies—across multiple methodologies and issues—show that these beliefs are mistaken.

WTF, you might be wondering. Why don’t people bend the knee to facts?

Human beings of all ideological stripes are highly susceptible to confirmation bias—the tendency to automatically accept information that affirms our prior convictions and wave away that which doesn’t. Political psychiatrist Karin Tamerius explains, “Our political attitudes and beliefs are intertwined with our most basic human needs—needs for safety, belonging, identity, self-esteem, and purpose—and when they’re threatened, we’re biologically wired to respond as if we’re in physical peril.”

When the brain snaps into defensive mode, the capacity for empathy and reasoning become constrained, because all cognitive resources are marshalled against the enemy invader. It is nigh impossible for a defensive brain to learn something new or admit to error.

A large body of research into confirmation bias shows that trying to convince someone they’re wrong usually backfires. A famous Stanford experiment recruited two sets of students, one favoring the death penalty and one opposing it. The students read two fabricated studies: one that demonstrated that the death penalty has a deterrent effect and one that said it does not. After reading the same two studies, the students were indeed moved…toward a more adamant version of their pre-existing beliefs.

Confirmation bias alone is a powerful cognitive defense. But when the belief being challenged is tied to one’s partisan affiliation, an inconvenient little human foible called “conformity bias” further entrenches partisan allegiance.

Conformity bias is a fancy term for peer pressure. We know from adolescence how powerful it can be, and it’s the same for adults. In one experiment, subjects examined drawings of 3D objects and identified whether the objects were the same or different. When actors in the room gave intentionally wrong answers, the subjects gave the wrong answer 41% of the time—even though the correct answer was obvious. When people overrode the groupthink and gave the correct answer, brain scans showed their amygdalas lighting up—the same part of the brain that perceives physical threats. Nonconformity is scary, even in a no-stakes situation with people you’ll likely never see again.

Working in tandem, confirmation and conformity bias are a bulwark against factual corrections proffered by the opposition. The defensiveness is even more unyielding on issues like immigration that, according to research done by the (pro-immigration) groups American Immigration Council and Over Zero, threaten people’s “sacred values.” The perceived threat might, as expected, be to white or Christian status, but it could also be a threat to one’s sense of fairness or job security.

Consider Troy, a Mexican-American high-school dropout living hand-to-mouth in a run-down house without electricity in Tucson. Interviewed in the documentary Trumpland, Troy recounts how his successful landscaping business went bust due to the 2008 recession and to contracts lost to immigrant landscapers able to undercut him on price because they crossed the border back to Mexico every night and dumped their debris for free.

Troy from Trumpland documentary

Troy’s work ethic is fierce and so too is his resentment toward the forces that he believes keep him underemployed and underpaid—immigration and corporate offshoring. “We have more people than jobs, and what I think is we need more jobs than people,” he says, adding, “I’ll scrub a damn toilet with a toothbrush with a smile on my face if it will pay my bills.”

The more that someone perceives immigration as a threat, the more immune they are to rational argumentation. For someone like Troy or any Republican who favors a more restrictive border policy, hearing Robert Reich, Bill Clinton’s Labor Secretary, debunk the GOP’s “Five Biggest Border Lies” is unlikely to have the effect Reich was hoping for. Like all fact-checks and debunkings, Reich’s video is doomed to delight the choir while hardening the opposition. (If you watch his three-minute debunking video, what I’m about to say will make more sense.)

Reich’s certitude smacks of arrogance. To make matters worse, his quaint expletives like “poppycock” and “baloney” further antagonize the very people he’s ostensibly trying to reach. Reich’s audience may be moderates who are persuadable on immigration, but if they’ve ever entertained even one of the notions Reich pillories, their defensive hackles will go up. And even if his audience is the liberal choir, it would still be better for him to role model a more effective communication style.

Reich is a brilliant and deeply committed liberal. But he makes the same hubristic error that so many partisans do—thinking that if we parry with enough facts and charts, our opponents will realize the error of their ways and surrender. Perhaps they’ll even thank us for enlightening them.

So instead of debunking, what can be done in response to narratives we believe to be false? The American Immigration Council’s report recommends responding to opposing views with respect and curiosity, acknowledging and, if possible, honoring the deeply held values underlying them. (Widely held values include fairness, family, freedom, patriotism, belonging, hard work, safety, and the Golden Rule). Then, and only then, will it be fruitful to share your own values and opinions.

Everything I’ve experienced in the last eight years tells me they’re right, that listening open-heartedly to people is far more productive than shooting down their opinions one-by-one. Don’t assume that everyone who wants to build a border wall is mindlessly reacting to Fox News fearmongering. There’s a core value that Fox is activating. Find out what it is and speak to it—or leave it to Fox to do so.

Whether it’s immigration or any other controversial issue, curiosity about what’s at the heart of people’s beliefs is key to effective communication. Asking questions isn’t feasible in one-way communications, but content creators can compensate by consulting with ordinary people with different opinions ahead of time instead of coming out swinging against GOP talking points.

Another best practice is to acknowledge what the other side is saying, not as a setup for immediately tearing it down, as Reich does, but to simply recognize that people of good faith get their information from different sources. Doing so demonstrates intellectual humility, a trait proven (proven!) in a recent study out of Princeton (Princeton!) to enhance persuasiveness.

When I canvassed for Kentucky gubernatorial candidate Andy Beshear, I met a Republican voter who said she was going to vote for Beshear’s opponent, Matt Bevin, because she had cancer and was compelled to vote for the candidate who would protect coverage for pre-existing conditions. She had the candidates mixed up. Instead of telling her that outright, which would have made her defensive, I said:

I’m out here talking to voters because I’m really worried about people losing their health care. I can’t even imagine how horrible it would be if you couldn’t get your cancer treatments. Where we have a difference is that, from everything I’ve been looking at, it’s Beshear who wants to protect pre-existing conditions and Bevin who says he won’t.

She looked very surprised and accepted the campaign leaflet I handed her that straightforwardly outlined each candidate’s position on health care (without attacking Bevin). I don’t know who she voted for, but I’d put money on Beshear.

The key word I used was “different.” My information was different from hers—not better, not truer, not smarter. Different. I didn’t ask her what kind of crazy right-wing propaganda outlet had brainwashed her. I didn’t label her belief “poppycock.” I simply offered an additional piece of information.

Had I shared a personal health insurance nightmare, that likely would have been even more compelling. In this era of diminished trust in institutional authority, people are skeptical of facts but trust subjective stories and experiences.

Have I persuasively debunked the notion that debunking is useful? If I haven’t, well, that’s one more piece of evidence that it isn’t.

Erica Etelson is co-founder of the Rural Urban Bridge Initiative and the author of Beyond Contempt: How Liberals Can Communicate Across the Great Divide. Her personal Substack is at ericaetelson.substack.com.