We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. (Plato)
The other day a friend of mine on FB posted a story about a border guard lamenting the rock throwing by Mexican immigrants. I listened to the video and wondered how often Mexican immigrants threw rocks or fired on border guards.
I found an article using border patrol statistics that stated that though it happens, it’s relatively rare. Satisfied with my research, I posted a link to the article in comments. My friend did not read the article, he simply commented back, “I don’t want to get into it with you.”
Later, a woman, who obviously had not read the article, posted how much she agreed with my friend. She went on to say that it wasn’t worth a discussion with ignorant people who don’t “see this all the time.” (Referring to Mexican violence against the border patrol.)
Those responses made me wonder why, both my friend and his ally were so stuck on their opinion. What were the psychological factors that were involved? Why would someone blind themselves to facts that might displace a strong belief? So, back into research mode I went. What follows are my discoveries.
Let’s start by looking at the way we develop false beliefs by lying to ourselves. We see a news video of a riot in another country. Our brains equate that country, the whole country, as one big riot. Another example is our perception of Mexico. We hear on the news a story about the drug cartels in Mexico. Our brains think of Mexico as one giant drug cartel and logically, we assume that most of the citizens of Mexico must be affiliated with the drug trade in one way or another. We read that a black man broke into a house and murdered a family, therefore black men must be dangerous.
Of course, in each case our assumptions are false. However, that still doesn’t explain why we often cling to these false beliefs despite evidence to the contrary. We must dig deep inside our brain for that. We have a natural predisposition to fear anything that our brain (precisely the amygdala) tells us to avoid because it might harm us.
Once established, these illogical fears are difficult to shake, and they can be almost impossible to shake if we personally have seen or experienced an event that causes harm. If you are burglarized, all people you don’t personally know may be suspected. If a woman is raped, she may never be able to trust men.
Somewhere deep in our neural wiring we determine that our belief is worthy of saving regardless of how many facts there are to the contrary. Is there any way to reach folks like this? Yes. Is it worth the time and effort? Yes. Why? Because false beliefs set policies for entire nations often resulting in acts of unimaginable horror.
If you don’t believe me, take the example of my friend who believes Mexican immigrants pose a threat to the border patrol. He shared a video which was shared by others. If enough people watch and believe the video as fact, it will influence immigration policy and the standards set in the way the border patrol behaves. It becomes okay to kill immigrants.
To make matters worse, people with false beliefs will aggregate around others with these same false beliefs. If enough people have these beliefs it can be catastrophic as we witnessed in Germany under Hitler’s reign and in the United States where Japanese Americans ended up in concentration camps.
The minds of hardliners, like my friend who isn’t interested in facts, are the most difficult and sometimes impossible to change. However, most of us are not hardliners. But, it’s still not easy to change beliefs in time to prevent the consequences. When we act on false beliefs, there are consequences. We may later regret the acts taken. Unfortunately, regret will not bring back the dead.
We have tools at our disposal to stop a false belief from spreading. It’s called media. Newspapers, television, the internet, and social media are at our disposal. Journalists, bloggers, and other influencers have a responsibility to douse the fire of false beliefs before they have a chance to spread.
Take the example of the video that my friend posted. The underlying statement of that video was that immigrants are dangerous. Possibly so dangerous that they should be shot. How about a second video also of a border guard who relates a truthful story about the border patrol/immigrant interaction. Even my hardliner friend and his compatriots would have a difficult time reconciling their false belief that all border guards are in real and imminent danger from all immigrants. And should they hold fast to their false belief, at least they will remain a minority.
The second, and most long-lasting way to solve the false belief problem is to teach folks to question everything they see, read, and hear. After all, isn’t that how false beliefs get started in the first place?
Don’t stop here. Read on:
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929310000071
- https://www.livescience.com/63554-why-false-beliefs-stick.html
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227851360_Values_Beliefs_and_Proenvironmental_Action_Attitude_Formation_Toward_Emergent_Attitude_Objects1
