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Rejecting Information That Threatens Beliefs

So, what's going on here?

"Basically the reason that people react in a close-minded way to information is that the implications of it threaten their values," says Dan Kahan, a law professor at Yale University and a member of The Cultural Cognition Project.

Kahan says people test new information against their preexisting view of how the world should work.

"If the implication, the outcome, can affirm your values, you think about it in a much more open-minded way," he says.

And if the information doesn't, you tend to reject it.

In another experiment, people read a United Nations study about the dangers of global warming. Then the researchers told the participants that the solution to global warming is to regulate industrial pollution. Many in the individualistic group then rejected the climate science. But when more nuclear power was offered as the solution, says Braman, "they said, you know, it turns out global warming is a serious problem."

And for the communitarians, climate danger seemed less serious if the only solution was more nuclear power.

The 'Messenger' Effect

Then there's the "messenger" effect. In an experiment dealing with the dangers versus benefits of a vaccine, the scientific information came from several people. They ranged from a rumpled and bearded expert to a crisply business-like one. The participants tended to believe the message that came from the person they considered to be more like them.

In relation to the climate change debate, this suggests that some people may not listen to those whom they view as hard-core environmentalists.

"If you have people who are skeptical of the data on climate change," Braman says, "you can bet that Al Gore is not going to convince them at this point."

So, should climate scientists hire, say, Newt Gingrich as their spokesman? Kahan says no.

"The goal can't be to create a kind of psychological house of mirrors so that people end up seeing exactly what you want," he argues. "The goal has to be to create an environment that allows them to be open-minded."

And Kahan says you can't do that just by publishing more scientific data.


Click here to read this article at NPR.