It's The Reason Why They Lie

In his Face the Nation Commentary, Bob Schieffer criticizes the level of pandering and spin that has become a staple of modern American politics. He chides the candidates, saying: "My bet is not many people believe any of them, because frankly, we’re not that dumb. What annoys me is that these candidates seem to think we are.”

They certainly do, because we are. But not in the way you would think.

We just can't remember the truth once we've heard the lie. According to this study, Why debunking myths is difficult:

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently issued a flyer to combat myths about the flu vaccine. It recited various commonly held views, and labeled them "true" or "false." Among those identified as false were statements such as "the side effects are worse than the flu" and "only older people need flu vaccine."

When University of Michigan social psychologist Norbert Schwarz had volunteers read the CDC flyer, however, he found that, within 30 minutes, older people misremembered 28 percent of the false statements as true. Three days later, they remembered 40 percent of the myths as factual.

Younger people did better at first, but three days later they made as many errors as older people did after 30 minutes. Most troubling was that people of all ages now felt that the source of their false beliefs was the respected CDC.

The psychological insights yielded by the research, which has been confirmed in a number of peer-reviewed lab experiments, have broad implications for public policy.

The conventional response to myths and urban legends is to counter bad information with accurate information. But the new psychological studies show that denials and clarifications, for all their intuitive appeal, can paradoxically contribute to the resiliency of popular myths.

The GOP must have been on to this study years ago. This would explain why the Republicans so freely dissemble and spin, even when the truth can so easily be discerned afterwards. It doesn't matter, because for most people, the lie will be remembered as true, not the earlier reality. In fact, the article discusses this very issue:

This phenomenon may help explain why large numbers of Americans incorrectly think that Saddam Hussein was directly involved in planning the Sept. 11 attacks and that most of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqi. While these beliefs likely arose because Bush administration officials have repeatedly tried to connect Iraq with Sept. 11, the experiments suggest that intelligence reports and other efforts to debunk this account may help keep it alive.

* * * *

Research on the difficulty of debunking myths has not been specifically tested on beliefs about Sept. 11 conspiracies or the Iraq war. But because the experiments illuminate basic properties of the human mind, psychologists such as Schwarz say the same phenomenon is probably implicated in the spread and persistence of a variety of political and social myths.

The research does not absolve those responsible for promoting myths in the first place. What the psychological studies highlight is the potential paradox in trying to fight bad information with good information.

The research is painting a broad new understanding of how the mind works. Contrary to the conventional notion that people absorb information in a deliberate manner, the studies show that the brain uses subconscious "rules of thumb" that can bias it into thinking that false information is true. Clever manipulators can take advantage of this tendency.

And I suppose -- in part at least -- that explains why the Democrats have had such a hard time of it. Because the GOP is willing to spin and twist the truth with the greatest of ease, it is left to the Democrats to try to explain the "reality" or the truth. Once the idea is planted, it's roots are difficult to eradicate. Trying to explain or correct the facts later just doesn't work. Add to this the fact that the Republicans are expert at the spin, repeat & spin again cycle, so the wrong concept is really embedded in our minds.

The Inquirer's conclusion bears this out:

The research also highlights the disturbing reality that, once an idea has been implanted, it can be difficult to dislodge. Denials inherently require repeating the bad information.

(Video via Crooks and Liars)

Tags: Commentary, Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer, Politics, Video