tag:theconversation.com,2011:/id/topics/manipulation-27384/articlesManipulation – The Conversation2024-02-15T01:53:26Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2158152024-02-15T01:53:26Z2024-02-15T01:53:26ZCan we be inoculated against climate misinformation? Yes – if we prebunk rather than debunk<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575202/original/file-20240213-24-2257zy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=239%2C58%2C4606%2C2971&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/montreal-canada-september-27-2019-woman-1547586671">Adrien Demers/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Last year, the world experienced the hottest day <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/07/05/hottest-day-ever-recorded">ever recorded</a>, as we endured the first year where temperatures were 1.5°C warmer than the pre-industrial era. The link between extreme events and climate change is <a href="https://www.worldweatherattribution.org/extreme-heat-in-north-america-europe-and-china-in-july-2023-made-much-more-likely-by-climate-change/#:%7E:text=July%202023%20saw%20extreme%20heatwaves,China%20(CNN%2C2023).">clearer than ever</a>. But that doesn’t mean climate misinformation has stopped. Far from it. </p>
<p>Misleading or incorrect information on climate still spreads like wildfire, even during the angry northern summer of 2023. Politicians falsely claimed the heatwaves were “<a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/08/09/phoenix-heat-wave-republicans-00110325">normal</a>” for summer. Conspiracy theorists claimed the devastating fires in Hawaii were ignited by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/08/11/conspiracy-theorists-go-viral-with-claim-space-lasers-are-to-blame-for-hawaii-fires/?sh=1d46579e4529">government lasers</a>. </p>
<p>People producing misinformation have shifted tactics, too, often moving from the old denial (claiming climate change isn’t happening) to the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/01/16/climate/climate-denial-misinformation-youtube/index.html">new denial</a> (questioning climate solutions). Spreading doubt and scepticism has hamstrung our response to the enormous threat of climate change. And with sophisticated generative AI making it easy to generate plausible lies, it could become an <a href="https://www.stockholmresilience.org/download/18.889aab4188bda3f44912a32/1687863825612/SRC_Climate%20misinformation%20brief_A4_.pdf">even bigger issue</a>.</p>
<p>The problem is, debunking misinformation <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-023-01623-8">is often not sufficient</a> and you run the risk of giving false information <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12144-024-05651-z">credibility</a> when you have to debunk it. Indeed, a catchy lie can often stay in people’s heads while sober facts are forgotten. </p>
<p>But there’s a new option: the <a href="https://interventions.withgoogle.com/static/pdf/A_Practical_Guide_to_Prebunking_Misinformation.pdf">prebunking method</a>. Rather than waiting for misinformation to spread, you lay out clear, accurate information in advance – along with describing common manipulation techniques. Prebunking often has a better chance of success, according to <a href="https://harpercollins.co.uk/products/foolproof-why-we-fall-for-misinformation-and-how-to-build-immunity-sander-van-der-linden?variant=39973011980366">recent research</a> from co-author Sander van der Linden. </p>
<h2>How does prebunking work?</h2>
<p><a href="https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/how-fake-news-spreads-real-virus">Misinformation spreads</a> much like a virus. The way to protect ourselves and everyone else is similar: through vaccination. Psychological inoculation via prebunking acts like a vaccine and reduces the probability of infection. (We focus on misinformation here, which is shared accidentally, not <a href="https://frontline.thehindu.com/news/what-is-climate-misinformation-and-why-does-it-matter-disinformation-opponents-of-climate-science-greenwashing/article67771776.ece">disinformation</a>, which is where people deliberately spread information they know to be false). </p>
<p>If you’re forewarned about dodgy claims and questionable techniques, you’re more likely to be sceptical when you come across a YouTube video claiming electric cars are dirtier than those with internal combustion engines, or a Facebook page suggesting offshore wind turbines will kill whales. </p>
<p>Inoculation is not just a metaphor. By exposing us to a weakened form of the types of misinformation we might see in the future and giving us ways to identify it, we reduce the chance false information takes root in our psyches. </p>
<p>Scientists have tested these methods with some success. In <a href="https://publichealth.jmir.org/2022/6/e34615/">one study</a> exploring ways of countering anti-vaccination misinformation, researchers created simple videos to warn people manipulators might try to influence their thinking about vaccination with anecdotes or scary images rather than evidence. </p>
<p>They also gave people relevant facts about how low the actual injury rate from vaccines is (around two injuries per million). The result: compared to a control group, people with the psychological inoculation were more likely to recognise misleading rhetoric, less likely to share this type of content with others, and more likely to want to get vaccinated. </p>
<p>Similar studies have <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/gch2.201600008">been conducted</a> on climate misinformation. Here, one group was forewarned that politically motivated actors will try to make it seem as if there was a lot of disagreement on the causes of climate change by appealing to fake experts and bogus petitions, while in fact <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-97-climate-consensus-is-over-now-its-well-above-99-and-the-evidence-is-even-stronger-than-that-170370">97% or more</a> of climate scientists have concluded humans are causing climate change. This inoculation proved effective. </p>
<p>The success of these early studies has spurred social media companies <a href="https://sustainability.fb.com/blog/2022/10/24/climate-science-literacy-initiative/">such as Meta</a> to adopt the technique. You can now find prebunking efforts on Meta sites such as Facebook and Instagram intended to protect people against common misinformation techniques, such as cherry-picking isolated data. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/youtube-how-a-team-of-scientists-worked-to-inoculate-a-million-users-against-misinformation-189007">YouTube: how a team of scientists worked to inoculate a million users against misinformation</a>
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<h2>Prebunking in practice</h2>
<p>A hotter world will experience increasing climate extremes and <a href="https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2020RG000726">more fire</a>. Even though many of the fires we have seen in recent years in Australia, Hawaii, Canada and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/feb/10/chile-wildfires-vina-del-mar-achupallas">now Chile</a> are the worst on record, climate misinformation actors routinely try to minimise their severity. </p>
<p>As an example, let’s prebunk claims likely to circulate after the next big fire. </p>
<p><strong>1. The claim: “Climate change is a hoax – wildfires have always been a part of nature.”</strong></p>
<p>How to prebunk it: ahead of fire seasons, scientists can demonstrate claims like this rely on the “<a href="https://newslit.org/tips-tools/news-lit-tip-false-equivalence/">false equivalence</a>” logical fallacy. Misinformation falsely equates the recent rise in extreme weather events with natural events of the past. A devastating fire 100 years ago does not disprove <a href="https://www.unep.org/resources/report/spreading-wildfire-rising-threat-extraordinary-landscape-fires">the trend</a> towards more fires and larger fires. </p>
<p><strong>2. Claim: “Bushfires are caused by arsonists.”</strong> </p>
<p>How to prebunk it: media professionals have an important responsibility here in fact-checking information before publishing or broadcasting. Media can give information on the most common causes of bushfires, from lightning (about 50%) to accidental fires to arson. <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/bushfires-firebugs-fuelling-crisis-as-national-arson-toll-hits-183/news-story/52536dc9ca9bb87b7c76d36ed1acf53f#:%7E:text=Victoria's%20Crime%20Statistics%20agency%20told,older%20men%20in%20their%2060s.">Media claims</a> arsonists were the main cause of the unprecedented 2019-2020 Black Summer fires in Australia were used by climate deniers worldwide, even though arson was <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-11/australias-fires-reveal-arson-not-a-major-cause/11855022">far from the main cause</a>.</p>
<p><strong>3. Claim: “The government is using bushfires as an excuse to bring in climate regulations.”</strong> </p>
<p>How to prebunk it: explain this recycled conspiracy theory is likely to circulate. Point out how it was used to claim COVID-19 lockdowns were a government ploy to soften people up for <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/climate-lockdowns-became-new-battleground-conspiracy-driven-protest-mo-rcna80370">climate lockdowns</a> (which never happened). Show how government agencies can and do communicate openly about why climate regulations <a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/climate-change/strategies">are necessary</a> and how they are intended to stave off the worst damage. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575160/original/file-20240212-26-6ztcl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="firefighter putting out bushfire" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575160/original/file-20240212-26-6ztcl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/575160/original/file-20240212-26-6ztcl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575160/original/file-20240212-26-6ztcl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575160/original/file-20240212-26-6ztcl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=220&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575160/original/file-20240212-26-6ztcl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575160/original/file-20240212-26-6ztcl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/575160/original/file-20240212-26-6ztcl9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=276&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">False information on bushfires can spread like a bushfire.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/australia-bushfires-fire-fueled-by-wind-1566620281">Toa55/Shutterstock</a></span>
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<h2>Misinformation isn’t going away</h2>
<p>Social media and the open internet have made it possible to broadcast information to millions of people, regardless of whether it’s true. It’s no wonder it’s a golden age for misinformation. Misinformation actors have found effective ways to cast scepticism on established science and then sell a false alternative. </p>
<p>We have to respond. Doing nothing means the lies win. And getting on the front foot with prebunking is one of the best tools we have. </p>
<p>As the world gets hotter, prebunking offers a way to anticipate new variants of lies and misinformation and counter them – before they take root. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/7-ways-to-avoid-becoming-a-misinformation-superspreader-157099">7 ways to avoid becoming a misinformation superspreader</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Chris Turney receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is a scientific adviser and holds shares in cleantech biographite company, CarbonScape. Chris is affiliated with the virtual Climate Recovery Institute, is a volunteer firefighter with the New South Wales Rural Fire Service (the NSW RFS), and is a Non-Executive Director on the boards of the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) and deeptech incubator, Cicada.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sander van der Linden consults for or has received funding from Google, the EU Commission, the United Nations (UN), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Alfred Landecker Foundation, Omidyar Network India, the American Psychological Association, the Centers for Disease Control, UK Government, Facebook/Meta, and the Gates Foundation.</span></em></p>When we see false information circulating, we might move to debunk it. But prebunking lies and explaining manipulation techniques can work better.Christian Turney, Pro Vice-Chancellor of Research, University of Technology SydneySander van der Linden, Professor of Social Psychology in Society, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2180952023-11-21T23:18:44Z2023-11-21T23:18:44ZWhy George Santos’ lies are even worse than the usual political lies – a moral philosopher explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560833/original/file-20231121-4482-abz219.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=71%2C15%2C5231%2C3347&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rep. George Santos on Capitol Hill in Washington on Oct. 24, 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/HouseSpeaker/89cab2060aad40ca9171f34e8e511ea4/photo?Query=george%20santos&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=262&currentItemNo=11">AP Photo/Stephanie Scarbrough</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Nov. 16, 2023, the bipartisan House Committee on Ethics issued a scathing report on the behavior of Rep. George Santos, finding that Santos had engaged in “<a href="https://ethics.house.gov/press-releases/statement-chairman-and-ranking-member-committee-ethics-regarding-representative-76">knowing and willful violations of the Ethics in Government Act</a>.” That committee’s Republican chair later introduced a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/17/politics/santos-expulsion-resolution-introduced/index.html">motion to expel</a> Santos from Congress. Regardless of the success or failure of that motion, which will be considered after Thanksgiving, Santos himself has announced he will <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/nyregion/george-santos-ethics-committee.html">not seek reelection</a>. </p>
<p>These consequences are being brought to bear on Santos in large part because of what the report calls a “<a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24169355-report-on-ethics-george-santos">constant stream of lies</a> to his constituents, donors, and staff.” Santos appears to have deceived donors about what their money would be used for. Ostensible campaign donations were redirected for his private use, including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/16/nyregion/santos-botox-ferragamo-expenses.html">purchases of Botox and subscriptions to OnlyFans</a>, an X-rated entertainment service. </p>
<p>What, though, makes Santos’ lies so unusual – and so damning? The idea that politicians are dishonest is, at this point, something of a cliché – although few have taken their dishonesty as far as Santos, who <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/01/the-everything-guide-to-george-santoss-lies.html">seems to have lied about</a> his education, work history, charitable activity, athletic prowess and even his place of residence. </p>
<p>Santos may be exceptional in how many lies he has told, but politicians seeking election have incentives to tell voters what they want to hear – and there is some empirical evidence that a willingness to lie may be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2008144117">helpful in the process of getting elected</a>. Voters may not appreciate candidates who are unwilling or unable to mislead others from time to time.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://phil.washington.edu/people/michael-blake">political philosopher</a> whose work focuses on the moral foundations of democratic politics, I am interested in the moral reasons behind voters’ right to feel resentment when they discover that their elected representatives have lied to them. </p>
<p>Political philosophers offer four distinct responses to this question – although none of these responses suggests that all lies are necessarily morally wrong.</p>
<h2>1. Lying is manipulative</h2>
<p>The first reason to resent being lied to is that it is a form of disrespect. When you lie to me, you treat me as a thing to be manipulated and used for your purposes. In the terms used by philosopher Immanuel Kant, when you lie to me, you treat me as <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9833.2010.01507.x">a means or a tool</a>, rather than a person with a moral status equal to your own. </p>
<p>Kant himself took this principle as a reason to condemn all lies, however useful – but other philosophers have thought that some lies were so important that they might be compatible with, or even express, respect for citizens. </p>
<p>Plato, notably, argues in “The Republic” that when the public good requires a leader to lie, the citizens should be <a href="http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0168%3Abook%3D3%3Apage%3D389">grateful for the deceptions of their leaders</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ias.edu/scholars/walzer">Michael Walzer</a>, a modern political philosopher, echoes this idea. Politics requires the building of coalitions and the making of deals – which, in a world full of moral compromise, may entail being deceptive about what one is planning and why. As Walzer puts it, no one succeeds in politics without <a href="http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/Philosophers/Walzer/PoliticaAction_TheProblemofDirtyHabnds.pdf">being willing to dirty their hands</a> – and voters should prefer politicians to get their hands dirty if that is the cost of effective political agency. </p>
<h2>2. Abuse of trust</h2>
<p>A second reason to resent lies begins with the idea of predictability. If our candidates lie to us, we cannot know what they really plan to do – and, hence, cannot trust that we are voting for the candidate who will best represent our interests.</p>
<p>Modern political philosopher <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/beerbohm/home">Eric Beerbohm</a> argues that when politicians speak to us, they invite us to trust them – and a politician who lies to us <a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/beerbohm/files/beerbohm_the_ethics_of_electioneering_jpp.pdf">abuses that trust</a> in a way that we may rightly resent. </p>
<p>These ideas are powerful, but they also seem to have some limits. Voters may not need to believe candidates’ words in order to understand their intentions and thereby come to accurate beliefs about what they plan to do. </p>
<p>To take one recent example: The majority of those who voted for Donald Trump in 2016, when he was trumpeting the idea of making Mexico pay for a border wall, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/09/14/even-trump-voters-think-mexico-paying-for-the-wall-is-kind-of-a-joke/">did not believe that it was actually possible</a> to build a wall that would be paid for by Mexico. They did not take Trump to be describing a literal truth, but expressing an untruth that was indicative of Trump’s overall attitude toward migration and toward Mexico – and voted for him on the basis of that attitude. </p>
<h2>3. Electoral mandate</h2>
<p>The third reason we might resent lies told on the campaign trail stems from the idea of an electoral mandate. Philosopher John Locke, whose writings influenced the Declaration of Independence, regarded political authority as stemming from the <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7370/7370-h/7370-h.htm#CHAPTER_VII">consent of the governed</a>; this consent might be illegitimate were it to be obtained by means of deception.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505396/original/file-20230119-17-r25b8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white engraving of a man with shoulder-length hair" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505396/original/file-20230119-17-r25b8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/505396/original/file-20230119-17-r25b8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505396/original/file-20230119-17-r25b8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505396/original/file-20230119-17-r25b8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=768&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505396/original/file-20230119-17-r25b8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505396/original/file-20230119-17-r25b8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/505396/original/file-20230119-17-r25b8l.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Philosopher John Locke championed the idea of the consent of the governed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/john-locke-english-philosopher-undated-engraving-news-photo/517391868?phrase=Philosopher%20John%20Locke&adppopup=true">Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>This idea, too, has power – but it also runs up against the sophistication of both modern elections and modern voters. After all, campaigns do not pretend to give a dispassionate description of political ideals. They are closer to rhetorical forms of combat and involve considerable amounts of <a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2016/02/09/the-history-of-political-spin-in-washington-dc-and-why-its-not-so-bad-for-us-as-youd-think/">deliberate ambiguity, rhetorical presentation and self-interested spin</a>. </p>
<p>More to the point, though, voters understand this context and rarely regard any candidate’s presentation as stemming solely from a concern for the unalloyed truth.</p>
<h2>4. Unnecessary and disprovable</h2>
<p>Santos’ lies, however, do seem to have provoked something like <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/12/29/1146096826/rep-elect-george-santos-faces-growing-anger-from-new-york-voters">resentment and outrage</a>, which suggests that they are somehow unlike the usual forms of deceptive practice undertaken during political campaigns. </p>
<p>Certainly the congressional response to these lies is extraordinary. If Santos is expelled from Congress, he would be only the third member of that body to have been expelled <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2023/11/01/house-could-expel-george-santos-today-here-are-the-other-lawmakers-who-have-been-kicked-out-of-congress/?sh=386ba482c988">since the Civil War</a>. </p>
<p>The rarity of this sanction may reflect a final reason to resent deception, which is that voters especially dislike being lied to unnecessarily – nor about matters subject to easy empirical proof or disproof. It seems clear that voters may sometimes be willing to accept deceptive and dissembling political candidates, given the fact that effective statecraft may involve the use of deceptive means. Santos, however, lied about matters as tangential to politics as his nonexistent history as a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/11/santos-lies-volleyball/">star player for Baruch College’s volleyball team</a>. </p>
<p>This lie was unnecessary, given its tenuous relationship to his candidacy for the House of Representatives, and easily disproved, given the fact that he did not actually attend Baruch. Similarly, the ethics report on Santos emphasized the fact that his expenditures often involved purchases for which there was no plausible relationship to a campaign, including US$6,000 at <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/george-santos-campaign-funds-how-spent-what-to-know-rcna125531">luxury goods store Ferragamo</a>. The proposition that such a purchase was useful for his election campaign is difficult to defend – or to believe. </p>
<p>I believe voters may have made their peace with some deceptive campaign practices. If Walzer is right, they should expect that an effective candidate will be imperfectly honest, at best. But candidates who are both liars and bad at lying can find no such justification, since they are unlikely to be believed and thus incapable of achieving those goods that justify their deception. </p>
<p>If voters have made their peace with some degree of lying, in short, they are nonetheless still capable of resenting candidates who are unskilled at the craft of political deception.</p>
<p><em>This is an <a href="https://theconversation.com/all-politicians-must-lie-from-time-to-time-so-why-is-there-so-much-outrage-about-george-santos-a-political-philosopher-explains-197877">updated version of an article</a> originally published on Jan. 20, 2023.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218095/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Blake receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.</span></em></p>A political philosopher writes that voters may put up with some degree of deception from politicians, but they may not accept being lied to unnecessarily.Michael Blake, Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy and Governance, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055652023-05-17T03:26:26Z2023-05-17T03:26:26ZThink you might be dating a ‘vulnerable narcissist’? Look out for these red flags<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526685/original/file-20230517-17-bi5991.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=66%2C275%2C7282%2C4627&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Single people are increasingly turning online to find love, with more than <a href="https://www.businessofapps.com/data/dating-app-market/">300 million people</a> around the world trying their luck on dating apps. Some find their fairy tale. But for others, stories of online dating have very different endings. </p>
<p>You may be ghosted after a seemingly blissful start, or strung along with just crumbs of attention. Perhaps you suddenly learn the person you’re dating isn’t who you thought they were.</p>
<p>If these scenarios sound familiar, you may have dated a “vulnerable narcissist”.</p>
<h2>The dark side of online dating</h2>
<p>These days, about 30% of new relationships <a href="https://www.monash.edu/news/articles/rise-of-the-ebabies-kids-born-to-aussie-couples-who-met-online-will-be-in-the-majority-by-2038">form online</a>, and experts say this will only become more common in the future. But online dating isn’t without risk.</p>
<p>Antisocial dating behaviours are common online, such as <a href="https://theconversation.com/when-texts-suddenly-stop-why-people-ghost-on-social-media-171932#:%7E:text=Ghosting%20happens%20when%20someone%20cuts,a%20ghost%2C%20they%20just%20vanish.">ghosting</a> and breadcrumbing (when someone gives you crumbs of attention to keep you interested, with no intention of progressing the relationship). These experiences are often painful for the person on the receiving end, resulting in diminished <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/3/1116?amp=1">self-esteem and wellbeing</a>.</p>
<p>Misrepresentation is also rife online. One study found up to 81% of online dating users had engaged in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14681994.2020.1714577?casa_token=bpv_gGMc3H0AAAAA%3AAMGr1fH2YISVI2mw_RSBIDKNNFJ-Iwibx-gI9Yi2G28pAGHr1X4POqkCGTtCRAYL6aQvKuOsiEza">some form of it</a>. Some forms of misrepresentation are arguably innocuous, such as a carefully selected profile photo. But others are more deceptive and potentially harmful, such as presenting one’s personality inauthentically to lure a potential mate. </p>
<h2>Behind the mask</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0736585323000497#b0075">new research</a> conducted by me and my colleagues Eliza Oliver and Evita March, we explore how personality traits can be associated with inauthentic self-presentation while online dating. </p>
<p>We were particularly interested in a sub-type of narcissism called vulnerable narcissism. Narcissism in a broad sense can be conceptualised as a personality trait that falls on a continuum. Those at the extreme end are characterised by entitlement, superiority, and a strong need for attention, admiration and approval. </p>
<p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1467-6494.2010.00711.x?casa_token=zRwVnmU2U0oAAAAA%3AGB9QPb8uZg9q10NvzRktf6kKxcCYQzU8y67x0x4p5NlFRIurhFOseZImTp3hJVsWrBTKgwSnOyNG2a0wFg">Vulnerable narcissism</a> is characterised by high emotional sensitivity and a defensive, insecure grandiosity that masks feelings of incompetence and inadequacy.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526687/original/file-20230517-15-e132h0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526687/original/file-20230517-15-e132h0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/526687/original/file-20230517-15-e132h0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526687/original/file-20230517-15-e132h0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526687/original/file-20230517-15-e132h0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526687/original/file-20230517-15-e132h0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526687/original/file-20230517-15-e132h0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/526687/original/file-20230517-15-e132h0.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Vulnerable narcissists tend to mask feelings of inadequacy with a grandiose presentation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0736585323000497#b0075">our study</a>, we recruited a sample of 316 online daters (55% female) via the crowdsourcing platform <a href="https://www.prolific.co/">Prolific</a>. We measured their scores for vulnerable narcissism, along with other “<a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/psychology/dark-triad">dark triad</a>” personality traits including grandiose narcissism (arrogance and dominance), <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/basics/psychopathy">psychopathy</a> (low empathy and callousness) and <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/machiavellians-gulling-the-rubes/201509/meet-the-machiavellians">Machiavellianism</a> (being manipulative and calculating).</p>
<p>We asked participants to complete two questionnaires that measured six domains of their personality, to measure how authentically they presented themselves.</p>
<p>First they considered their authentic self, with items such as “I can handle difficult situations without needing emotional support from anyone else”. Then they were asked to consider the persona they presented while online dating, with items such as “the persona I present when online dating would like people who have unconventional views”. </p>
<p>We then calculated a score for inauthentic self-presentation, which represented the distance between the authentic self and the online dating self.</p>
<p>We also asked participants whether they had ever engaged in the antisocial dating behaviours of ghosting or breadcrumbing. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-the-love-bomb-then-the-financial-emergency-5-tactics-of-tinder-swindlers-176807">First the 'love-bomb', then the 'financial emergency': 5 tactics of Tinder swindlers</a>
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<h2>Here’s what we found</h2>
<p>We found a significant link between vulnerable narcissism and inauthentic self-presentation. That is, those with higher scores for vulnerable narcissism presented more inauthentically. </p>
<p>Participants who had ghosted or breadcrumbed someone also had higher scores for vulnerable narcissism. However, it should be noted these effects were small, and not everyone who ghosts is likely to be a vulnerable narcissist. People may ghost for a range of reasons, some of which are appropriate to their situation (such as for their own safety). </p>
<p>That said, if a ghost returns from the dead without a reasonable explanation for their absence, you may have been “<a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/worse-than-being-ghosted-zombied-is-the-new-dating-trend_uk_644bbe89e4b011a819c72cea">zombied</a>”. This is when someone ghosts you, only to reappear months or even years later. If this happens it would be wise to hit the block button. </p>
<h2>Might I be dating a vulnerable narcissist?</h2>
<p>Vulnerable narcissists can be difficult to identify in the early stages of dating because the persona they present isn’t their authentic self. Over time, however, the mask usually comes off. </p>
<p>If you’re wondering whether you’re dating a vulnerable narcissist, look out for these red flags waving in sync.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Vulnerable narcissists are usually <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00223891.2012.742903?casa_token=IcNNaKmGw3UAAAAA%3AzFrhAeKDeVSJIKuSnjPEXr_qXidHdYl9aMiqK8iVp9F7w_0WRhu5PIaEmDsD9N6ZaevcZYrkFLhvOMM">introverted and high on neuroticism</a>. In isolation, these traits need not be of concern, but in vulnerable narcissists they typically present in combination with dishonesty, and a lack of <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886917306220?casa_token=DhWyvFYiticAAAAA:VZ3738yoILJZEHsePwKnsbNuiu7KYCpNvfoqE03I59Cuz2UkppwrfAknCIZZeTJIgI3AM4xoeskC">agreeableness and humility</a>.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://scholarworks.uark.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1013&context=discoverymag">Love-bombing</a> is a manipulative dating tactic commonly used by vulnerable narcissists. It’s characterised by excessive attention and affection. While this can be flattering in the early stages of a relationship, the intention is to manipulate you into feeling dependent on and obligated to them.</p></li>
<li><p><a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/pmh.1532">The devaluation phase</a> follows love-bombing. It will often manifest in emotionally abusive behaviours such as harsh and relentless criticism, unprovoked angry outbursts, <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-gaslighting-mean-107888">gaslighting</a> and stonewalling. </p></li>
<li><p>Finally, vulnerable narcissists are hypersensitive to criticism. Constructive criticism is an important component of communication in healthy relationships. But a vulnerable narcissist is likely to perceive the slightest criticism as a personal attack. They may respond to criticism with emotional outbursts, making you feel like you’re walking on eggshells.</p></li>
</ol>
<h2>I think I’m dating a vulnerable narcissist!</h2>
<p>Vulnerable narcissists are prone to engaging in <a href="https://dvassist.org.au/am-i-experiencing-domestic-violence/quizzes/am-in-an-emotionally-abusive-relationship/">emotionally abusive behaviours</a>. If you suspect you’re dating one then you may be experiencing domestic violence, or be at significant risk of it if the relationship continues. </p>
<p>The onset of narcissistic abuse is often <a href="https://theconversation.com/narcissism-and-the-various-ways-it-can-lead-to-domestically-abusive-relationships-116909">slow and insidious</a>, but the adverse effects (such as symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder) can persist long after the <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0191886922004470?casa_token=r6Y-_qazDXkAAAAA:7DuvvE7SkGYdwYS56_abxctoBQXaLUDdMm6Sksy6_nob279--ICCtwEvvB57CxuDlhgtKZfNpTt4">relationship has ended</a>. </p>
<p>If you have concerns, it’s important to seek support from your family doctor, a psychologist, or a <a href="https://www.1800respect.org.au/">domestic violence support service</a>. They can help you navigate the relationship, or safely exit it. </p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-narcissism-a-mental-health-problem-and-can-you-really-diagnose-it-online-188360">Is narcissism a mental health problem? And can you really diagnose it online?</a>
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</p>
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<p><em>Anyone at risk of family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault can seek help 24 hours a day, seven days a week, either online or by calling 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732). Information is also available in 28 languages other than English.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205565/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Megan Willis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research reveals individuals that score high for vulnerable narcissism are likely to present themselves inauthentically while online dating.Megan Willis, Senior Lecturer, School of Behavioural and Health Sciences, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2046072023-05-02T12:13:12Z2023-05-02T12:13:12ZThe thinking error that makes people susceptible to climate change denial<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523279/original/file-20230427-24-j9qvgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=422%2C15%2C4418%2C2783&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Expecting black-and-white answers can make it hard to see the truth.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/gears-in-the-mind-royalty-free-illustration/892833704">bubaone via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Cold spells often bring climate change deniers out in force on social media, with hashtags like <a href="https://news.yahoo.com/nasa-yes-its-freezing-cold-no-that-doesnt-mean-climate-change-is-a-hoax-182933369.html">#ClimateHoax and #ClimateScam</a>. Former President Donald Trump often chimes in, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2019/01/29/trump-always-dismisses-climate-change-when-its-cold-not-so-fast-experts-say/">repeatedly claiming</a> that each cold snap disproves the existence of global warming.</p>
<p>From a scientific standpoint, these claims of disproof are absurd. Fluctuations in the weather don’t refute clear <a href="https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/monitoring/monthly-report/global/202301">long-term trends in the climate</a>. </p>
<p>Yet many people believe these claims, and the political result has been reduced willingness to take action to mitigate climate change.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3E0a_60PMR8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Sen. James Inhofe brought a snowball to the Senate floor in February 2015 to argue that because it was cold enough to snow in Washington, D.C., climate change wasn’t real. That year became the hottest on record and has since been surpassed.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Why are so many people susceptible to this type of disinformation? <a href="https://psychsciences.case.edu/people/other-faculty/">My field</a>, psychology, can help explain – and help people avoid being misled.</p>
<h2>The allure of black-and-white thinking</h2>
<p>Close examination of the arguments made by climate change deniers reveals the same mistake made over and over again. That mistake is the cognitive error known as black-and-white thinking, also called dichotomous and all-or-none thinking. As I explain in my book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Finding-Goldilocks-Creating-Personal-Relationships/dp/B08M8DS76S">Finding Goldilocks</a>,” black-and-white thinking is a source of dysfunction in mental health, relationships – and politics.</p>
<p>People are often susceptible to it because in many areas of life, dichotomous thinking does something helpful: It simplifies the world.</p>
<p>Binaries are easy to handle because there are only two possibilities to consider. When people face a spectrum of possibilities and nuance, they have to exert more mental effort. But when that spectrum is polarized into pairs of opposites, choices are clear and dramatic.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Image of a person showing arrows pointing in opposite directions the person might take." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523335/original/file-20230427-30-ykiwpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523335/original/file-20230427-30-ykiwpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523335/original/file-20230427-30-ykiwpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523335/original/file-20230427-30-ykiwpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523335/original/file-20230427-30-ykiwpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523335/original/file-20230427-30-ykiwpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523335/original/file-20230427-30-ykiwpt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most things don’t fall neatly into only two choices.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/standing-man-with-two-choices-royalty-free-image/155131774">eyetoeyePIX via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This mental labor-saving device is practical in many everyday situations, but it is a poor tool for understanding complicated realities – and the climate is complicated.</p>
<p>Sometimes, people divide the spectrum in asymmetric ways, with one side much larger than the other. For example, perfectionists often categorize their work as either perfect or unsatisfactory, so even good and very good outcomes are <a href="https://www.guilford.com/books/Cognitive-Behavioral-Treatment-of-Perfectionism/Egan-Wade-Shafran-Antony/9781462527649/authors">lumped together with poor ones</a> in the unsatisfactory category. In dichotomous thinking like this, a single exception can tip a person’s view to one side. It’s like a pass/fail grading system in which 100% earns a pass and everything else gets an F.</p>
<p>With a grading system like this, it’s not surprising that opponents of climate action have found ways to reject global warming research, despite the overwhelming evidence.</p>
<p>Here’s how they do it:</p>
<h2>The all-or-nothing problem</h2>
<p>Climate change deniers simplify the spectrum of possible scientific consensus into two categories: 100% agreement or no consensus at all. If it’s not one, it’s the other.</p>
<p>A 2021 review of thousands of climate science papers and conference proceedings concluded that over 99% of studies have found that burning <a href="https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac2966">fossil fuels warms the planet</a>. That’s not good enough for some skeptics. If they find one contrarian scientist somewhere, they categorize the idea of human-caused global warming as controversial and <a href="https://e360.yale.edu/features/freeman_dyson_takes_on_the_climate_establishment">conclude that there is no basis for action</a>.</p>
<p>Powerful economic interests are at work here: The fossil fuel industry has funded disinformation campaigns for years to <a href="https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/09/oil-companies-discourage-climate-action-study-says">create this kind of doubt about climate change</a>, despite <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-big-oil-knew-about-climate-change-in-its-own-words-170642">knowing that their products cause it and the consequences</a>. Members of Congress have <a href="https://www.eenews.net/articles/trumps-climate-denial-shapes-house-gop-backbench/">used that disinformation</a> to block or weaken federal policies that could slow climate change.</p>
<h2>Expecting a straight line in a variable world</h2>
<p>In another example of black-and-white thinking, deniers argue that if global temperatures are not increasing at a perfectly consistent rate, there is no such thing as global warming. </p>
<p>However, complex variables never change in a uniform way; they wiggle up and down in the short term even when exhibiting long-term trends. Most business data, such as revenues, profits and stock prices, do this too, with short-term fluctuations contained in long-term trends.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Charts showing Apple's changing stock price and global temperatures over time. Both have a saw-tooth pattern." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523304/original/file-20230427-18-w7d3zk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523304/original/file-20230427-18-w7d3zk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523304/original/file-20230427-18-w7d3zk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523304/original/file-20230427-18-w7d3zk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523304/original/file-20230427-18-w7d3zk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523304/original/file-20230427-18-w7d3zk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523304/original/file-20230427-18-w7d3zk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These two graphs have the same form: a long-term trend of major increase within which there are short-term fluctuations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mistaking a cold snap for disproof of climate change is like mistaking <a href="https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AAPL/apple/market-value">a bad month for Apple stock</a> for proof that Apple isn’t a good long-term investment. This error results from homing in on a tiny slice of the graph and ignoring the rest.</p>
<h2>Failing to examine the gray area</h2>
<p>Climate change deniers also mistakenly cite correlations below 100% as evidence against human-caused global warming. They triumphantly point out that sunspots and volcanic eruptions also affect the climate, even though evidence shows both have <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/">very little influence on long-term temperature rise</a> in comparison to greenhouse gas emissions.</p>
<p>In essence, deniers argue that if fossil fuel burning is not all-important, it’s unimportant. They miss the gray area in between: Greenhouse gases are indeed just one factor warming the planet, but they’re the most important one and the factor humans can influence.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Charts showing impact of different forces on temperature. Natural sources have little variation, but the upward swing of temperatures corresponds closely with rising greenhouse gas emissions." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523071/original/file-20230426-1510-itdelq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/523071/original/file-20230426-1510-itdelq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523071/original/file-20230426-1510-itdelq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523071/original/file-20230426-1510-itdelq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=738&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523071/original/file-20230426-1510-itdelq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523071/original/file-20230426-1510-itdelq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/523071/original/file-20230426-1510-itdelq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=927&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Influences on global temperature over time.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/">4th National Climate Assessment</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>‘The climate has always been changing’ – but not like this</h2>
<p>As increases in global temperatures have become obvious, some climate change skeptics have switched from denying them to reframing them.</p>
<p>Their oft-repeated line, “The climate has always been changing,” typically delivered with an air of patient wisdom, is based on a striking lack of knowledge about the <a href="https://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/">evidence from climate research</a>.</p>
<p>Their reasoning is based on an invalid binary: Either the climate is changing or it’s not, and since it’s always been changing, there is nothing new here and no cause for concern.</p>
<p>However, the current warming is on par with <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.1228026">nothing humans have ever seen</a>, and intense warming events in the distant past were planetwide <a href="https://www.washington.edu/news/2018/12/06/biggest-extinction-in-earths-history-caused-by-global-warming-leaving-ocean-animals-gasping-for-breath/">disasters that caused massive extinctions</a> – something we do not want to repeat.</p>
<p>As humanity faces the challenge of global warming, we need to use all our cognitive resources. Recognizing the thinking error at the root of climate change denial could disarm objections to climate research and make science the basis of our efforts to preserve a hospitable environment for our future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/204607/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy P. Shapiro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A psychologist explains how opponents of climate policies use a common thinking error to manipulate the public – and why people are so susceptible.Jeremy P. Shapiro, Adjunct Assistant Professor of Psychological Sciences, Case Western Reserve UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2017492023-05-01T12:10:44Z2023-05-01T12:10:44ZRespectful persuasion is a relay race, not a solo sprint – 3 keys to putting it in practice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522413/original/file-20230421-26-rahwwe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C3%2C2189%2C1352&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sure, you can try to force people to agree with you -- but respectful persuasion is something else.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/person-attracts-people-to-his-side-with-a-magnet-royalty-free-image/1310600143?phrase=persuasion&adppopup=true">Andrii Yalanskyi/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2024 presidential election is still a year and a half away, but it can feel much closer: President Joe Biden <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/-joe-biden-president-election-2024-campaign-announcement-rcna80990">has made his reelection bid official</a>, presumed candidates are <a href="https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/ron-desantis-pennsylvania-harrisburg-florida-presidential-20230401.html">giving out-of-state speeches</a>, pundits are already <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/3863529-three-reasons-nikki-haleys-candidacy-is-a-race-to-watch/">weighing in on nomination hopefuls</a>, and social media is, as ever, a mess of people trying to persuade strangers to back their favorite. All for good reason: Even a little political persuasion in the next year could change the course of history.</p>
<p>I’m a philosopher <a href="https://phil.washington.edu/people/colin-marshall">who studies and teaches the ethics of persuasion</a>. My students are eager to find ways to persuade their friends, family and neighbors about political issues such as climate change and abortion. Moreover, many of them want to persuade with integrity: They want to engage the people they’re talking with respectfully, instead of using the manipulative tricks they regularly see in politics and marketing. But what is respectful persuasion, and what distinguishes it from disrespectful manipulation?</p>
<p>There’s no simple formula for respectful persuasion. However, some philosophers see crucial hints in the work of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant/">18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant</a>, whose theory of respect has guided many ethicists and policymakers for the past two centuries.</p>
<p>Drawing on Kant’s work, and that of other philosophers inspired by him, I think we can isolate three key components of respectful persuasion. This isn’t just an academic exercise. My students and I have found that these factors increase the chances of deep, meaningful conversation.</p>
<h2>1. Giving reasons</h2>
<p>Broadly speaking, reasons are considerations that rationally support some belief or action, including both empirical evidence and abstract arguments. For example, astronauts’ pictures of a round Earth rationally support the belief that the Earth is round. When we sincerely give someone reasons, we show respect for their rationality: their ability to recognize good reasons. </p>
<p>By contrast, a <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ethics-manipulation/">hallmark of manipulation</a> is bypassing rationality, such as repeatedly exposing people to false statements to make them appear true – something that psychologists call the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-019-01651-4">illusory truth effect</a>.”</p>
<p>Manipulation can be effective, but psychologists have found that persuasion using reasons <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-4964-1_1">is more durable</a> than nonrational persuasion such as repetition-based tricks. For example, someone who comes to believe in climate change based on the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-science-everyone-needs-to-know-about-climate-change-in-6-charts-170556">scientific evidence</a> probably will not be as easily swayed later on by repeated exposure to climate skepticism. The rational support that good reasons provide for a belief can make that belief more stable. </p>
<h2>2. Being open to learning</h2>
<p>Giving reasons is not difficult by itself. The second component of respectful persuasion, however, is much more challenging: being open to receiving the other side’s reasons – a form of intellectual humility. This is especially hard for persuaders, since they have to give up some of the time they would have used to make their case.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522414/original/file-20230421-14-ljke0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A centuries-old painting of a serious-looking seated man in a powdered wig and brown suit." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522414/original/file-20230421-14-ljke0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522414/original/file-20230421-14-ljke0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522414/original/file-20230421-14-ljke0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522414/original/file-20230421-14-ljke0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=724&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522414/original/file-20230421-14-ljke0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522414/original/file-20230421-14-ljke0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522414/original/file-20230421-14-ljke0u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=909&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kant’s ideas about respect are still helpful for thinking through sticky situations today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/immanuel-kant-portrait-painting-by-d%C3%B6bler-1791-german-news-photo/171223546?adppopup=true">Culture Club/Hulton Archive via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kant expressed this core idea nicely. Even someone encountering a person whose opinion seems obviously wrong, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813306">Kant wrote</a>, has “a duty … to suppose that his judgment must yet contain some truth and to seek this out.” This isn’t merely a suggestion to listen to people one wants to persuade. Instead, respect demands actively seeking out truth in what the other person says. </p>
<p>In fact, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167217697695">some studies</a> suggest that intellectual humility makes people better able to evaluate the strength of arguments. This means that intellectually humble people may be more likely to recognize that a persuader’s arguments are actually better than their own, and have to reconsider their views – which can pose a real risk <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.789">to someone’s self-esteem</a>.</p>
<p>But being open to other people’s reasons also increases the chance of their being open to yours – a form of reciprocity in which you take turns learning from each other. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12773">Decades of psychological research</a> have shown that, especially in two-person exchanges, people value reciprocity in communication and see it as a way of treating each other fairly. </p>
<p>In other words, if you show openness to learning from someone else, rather than just lecturing, it may seem fair to them to be open to you too. </p>
<p>That is why faking this kind of respect can be a powerful manipulative tool. A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055419000923">psychologically savvy canvasser</a>, for instance, can manipulate swing voters by pretending to be open to learning about their own opinions. But this carries its own risk, since people who discover they have been manipulated <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24332280">may resent it</a>.</p>
<h2>3. Live and let live</h2>
<p>Kant’s <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813306">central principle of respect</a> is that one should “not degrade any other as a mere means” to one’s ends. This requires people to rein in their own self-love out of consideration for others. In popular culture, this might be summed up in the idea of “live and let live”: Other things being equal, we shouldn’t interfere in other people’s lives. </p>
<p>Overlooking this principle can make persuasion disrespectful in a variety of ways, even when the persuader has good intentions. The philosopher <a href="https://manoa.hawaii.edu/chinesestudies/tsai-george/">George Tsai</a> argues that this happens <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/papa.12026">in cases of unsolicited advice</a>: Imagine, he writes, that while your date goes to the restroom, an eavesdropping stranger tells you that she thinks you could do better. Even if the stranger is right, it’s simply none of her business.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522415/original/file-20230421-18-phutz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men in business attire chat while a woman in a sleeveless white top listens in, looking concerned." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522415/original/file-20230421-18-phutz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522415/original/file-20230421-18-phutz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522415/original/file-20230421-18-phutz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522415/original/file-20230421-18-phutz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522415/original/file-20230421-18-phutz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522415/original/file-20230421-18-phutz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/522415/original/file-20230421-18-phutz5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Having an opinion doesn’t mean you need to share it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/businesswoman-eavesdropping-on-conversation-royalty-free-image/1316007542?phrase=eavesdropping&adppopup=true">DragonImages/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Another example of how interference can make persuasion disrespectful is that <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-time-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-what-should-you-say-to-someone-who-refuses-to-wear-a-mask-a-philosopher-weighs-in-142898">changing someone’s mind</a> can harm their dignity and disrupt their connection to their community. For example, say that you persuade a relative who lives in a small ranching community to become vegan. That change might lead to their being ostracized by people they rely on.</p>
<p>Because persuasion can affect other people’s lives in many ways, this third component of respect is the most difficult to adhere to. Sometimes, people may be justified in interfering in other people’s lives, such as if lives are at stake or in particularly <a href="https://doi.org/10.5206/fpq/2016.2.1">close relationships</a> – but those are special circumstances. </p>
<h2>One conversation at a time</h2>
<p>In class, my students attempt to persuade one another four times, using a range of formats: five minutes vs. a whole week; in person vs. over Zoom. At the end, they score one another on effectiveness and respectfulness.</p>
<p>My students are smart, informed and passionate, and the class offers them a positive, carefully structured environment. Despite all that, they almost never succeed in persuading one another – at least not when it comes to politics.</p>
<p>Something interesting happens, though, when they let respect guide their conversations. Instead of launching into lectures, they start seeing each exchange as an opportunity to learn from each other – perhaps as an opportunity to leave their partner thinking about something in a new way, without fully persuading them.</p>
<p>If you approach our conversation as a chance to exchange ideas, without trying to change my mind, you may lay a cornerstone of trust. That, in turn, could make me more receptive to similar viewpoints in the future – even if I’m speaking with other people. Truly respectful political persuasion might best be seen as an extended team effort, not a one-time, one-person task.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201749/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Colin Marshall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Immanuel Kant’s ideas about respect are still important today, in a world where social media and echo chambers make manipulation easy.Colin Marshall, Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1963162023-01-03T06:58:02Z2023-01-03T06:58:02ZFree will: why people believe in it even when they think they’re being manipulated<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500375/original/file-20221212-93168-j2pe7w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C36%2C4905%2C3209&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Shopping centres manipulate us.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/woman-holding-shopping-bags-mall-546883993">Sonpichit Salangsing/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We all like to believe that we are free to make our own choices. At the same time, many people think that psychological techniques are constantly being <a href="https://theconversation.com/to-what-extent-are-we-ruled-by-unconscious-forces-161216">used to sway us</a> – from social media trends to advertising. So how do we square this? </p>
<p>Surprisingly, it’s a question most researchers have ignored until now. But in a series of recent studies, we asked people, “Where in your day to day life do you think psychological tactics are being used to manipulate you unconsciously?” – and investigated what that meant for their belief in free will. </p>
<p>In a 2018 study across four countries (Australia, Canada, UK and the USA), responses to the question above <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2020-00115-001">were remarkably similar</a>. In fact, they cut across age, gender, religiosity and political affiliation. </p>
<p>Approximately 45% of the examples people gave of psychological manipulation referred to marketing and advertising – especially “subliminal advertising” (using images or sounds to entice or persuade people that they aren’t consciously aware of). The next most common (19%) was research (such as using placebos), then political campaigning (7%), social media (4%) and hypnotherapy (4%).</p>
<p>People typically described methods that subtly change mood, emotions and thoughts in such a way they that they persuade us into choosing or doing things that we have not consciously consented to. For instance, shops can pipe the smell of fresh baked bread outside it to entice people in. In a speech, a politician may emphasise specific words to persuade people to support them. Despite knowing such a thing could happen, we typically can’t be sure when we were being manipulating in this way. </p>
<p>But do methods such as subliminal messaging actually work? Psychological research <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-08885-001">has not settled on an answer</a> to this. But it is interesting to ponder how all this affects our belief in free will.</p>
<h2>Rating scenarios</h2>
<p>We set out to investigate this topic over the past two years. Across eight studies <a href="https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/330509">we presented 1,230 people with scenarios</a> based on the earlier examples people had volunteered in the study conducted in 2018. The scenarios were from a range of contexts (marketing/advertising, research, political campaigning, social media, therapy). </p>
<p>For each scenario people had to rate the extent to which they believed there was unconscious manipulation (from none at all to complete manipulation), and the extent to which free choice would be maintained (from none at all to complete free choice). </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Politician talking and making an oath with his arm raised." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500378/original/file-20221212-103551-q7hy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/500378/original/file-20221212-103551-q7hy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500378/original/file-20221212-103551-q7hy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500378/original/file-20221212-103551-q7hy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500378/original/file-20221212-103551-q7hy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500378/original/file-20221212-103551-q7hy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/500378/original/file-20221212-103551-q7hy77.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Politicians try to sway us.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/politician-talking-making-oath-his-arm-1377668447">Minerva Studio/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Each person had to give ratings of free choice and ratings of unconscious manipulation several times over because they had to do this for each of the scenarios they were presented with. Totalling up all the ratings given across all eight studies across all 1,230 participants generated over 14,000 of each of the two ratings. A total of 3.7% of the 14,000 ratings of free choice were “0” (no free choice at all) and 8.4% were “10” (complete free choice) – with the remainder being somewhere in the between. </p>
<p>These are crude indicators, but they give a reasonable impression that even where manipulation was described to be occurring, there was proportionally more attributions of complete free choice than of absolutely none. For ratings of unconscious manipulation, 3.4% were “0” (no unconscious manipulation) and 9% were “10” (complete unconscious manipulation). So overall, people were more likely to think they had complete free choice than not at all, but they are also more likely to believe they were sometimes being manipulated than not at all. </p>
<p>We had expected to find what researchers call a negative correlation. That is, the more people think they are being manipulated, the less they believe they have free will. But this isn’t what we found. In the majority of the studies, there was no reliable correlation between the two. How can this be?</p>
<h2>Justifying beliefs</h2>
<p>One reason for this is how we think of the manipulation methods. Chances are we don’t think they’ll work very well on us, personally – leaving people to believe they remain in charge of their choices. </p>
<p>We did, however, find a difference when people were giving ratings from an impersonal point of view and when they are asked to imagine themselves in the scenarios. The more vividly people imagined the possibility of being manipulated, the more they saw this to impinge on their free choice. But chances are we are biased to think of others as more manipulated than ourselves. </p>
<p>The scenarios weren’t equal either. Some people don’t especially care that there might be manipulation going on. If marketing tactics and advertising steer us into selecting one cheap brand of toothpaste compared to another, then as long as we are saving money, it doesn’t matter. So people justify their belief in free will by assuming manipulation only happens for situations they don’t care about or that they are actively choosing to be manipulated – they are letting it happen.</p>
<p>That might be a reasonable approach to advertising. But if we are going into a voting booth, we will want to claim that it is our free choice who we vote for, and not a combination of psychological tactics that meddled with our unconscious. In such a situation, we are more likely to believe there’s no manipulation going on, or that we are somehow immune to it.</p>
<p>What the findings from our work tells us is that on a fundamental level we want to preserve a belief that we are free to choose. But how much we maintain the belief seems to depend on what is at stake. </p>
<p>While this may seem irrational, it is actually rather helpful and healthy. Ultimately, the world as we know it would totally collapse if we refused to believe we are responsible for our own actions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196316/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Magda Osman receives funding from ESRC, British Academy, Research England, Turing Institute. </span></em></p>We tend to think everyone is affected by sly, psychological techniques – except ourselves.Magda Osman, Principal Research Associate in Basic and Applied Decision Making, Cambridge Judge Business SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1766632022-02-16T20:15:34Z2022-02-16T20:15:34ZAll American presidents have lied – the question is why and when<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446325/original/file-20220214-138710-1elarsz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C12%2C2874%2C1942&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Critics of President Joe Biden have accused him of lying. Most American presidents have been accused of deception.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-joe-biden-speaks-during-an-event-at-germanna-news-photo/1369802125?adppopup=true">Win McNamee/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Those who dislike a president tend to emphasize the frequency or skill with which he lies. </p>
<p>During the Trump administration, for instance, The Washington Post kept a running database of the president’s lies and deceptions – with the final tally running to over <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/">30,000 falsehoods</a>. President Joe Biden’s critics have insisted that he, too, is a <a href="https://nypost.com/2021/11/22/bidens-obsessive-lies-small-and-large-are-big-trouble-for-america/">liar</a> – and that the media is complicit in ignoring his supposed frequent <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/572189-why-isnt-it-a-lie-when-joe-biden-says-something-false-or-dishonest">deception of the American people</a>. </p>
<p>The frequency of these criticisms would seem to indicate that most people do not want a president who lies. And yet a recent <a href="https://progressive.org/dispatches/lies-more-lies-presidential-history-lueders-200810/">study of presidential deception</a> found that all American presidents – from Washington to Trump – have told lies, and knowingly so, in their public statements. The most effective of presidents have sometimes been effective precisely because they were skilled at <a href="https://global.oup.com/ushe/product/paradoxes-of-the-american-presidency-9780190648503?cc=us&lang=en&">manipulation and deception</a>.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://phil.washington.edu/people/michael-blake">political philosopher</a> with a focus on how people try to reason together through political disagreement, I argue that what matters most is not whether a president lies, but when and why he does so. </p>
<p>Presidents who lie to save their own public image or career are unlikely to be forgiven. However, those who appear to lie in the service of the public are often celebrated.</p>
<h2>The morality of deception</h2>
<p>Why, though, are lies thought so wrongful in the first instance?</p>
<p>Philosopher Immanuel Kant, in the 18th century, provided one powerful account of <a href="https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199577415.001.0001/acprof-9780199577415-chapter-4">the wrongness of lying</a>. For Kant, lying was wrong in much the same way that threats and coercion are wrong. All of these override the autonomous will of another person, and treat that person as a mere tool. When a gunman uses threats to coerce a person to do a particular act, he disrespects that person’s rational agency. Lies are similarly disrespectful to rational agency: One’s decision has been manipulated, so that the act is no longer one’s own.</p>
<p>Kant regarded any lie as immoral – even one told to <a href="https://experts.illinois.edu/en/publications/kant-and-lying-to-the-murderer-at-the-door-one-more-time-kants-le">a murderer at the door</a>. </p>
<p>Modern-day philosophers have often endorsed versions of Kant’s account while seeking exceptions from its rigidness. One common theme is the necessity of the deception for achieving an important political goal. For example, a political leader who gives honest answers about a forthcoming military operation would likely imperil that operation – and most citizens of the state engaging in that military action would not want that. The key is that people might accept such deception, after the fact, because of what that deception made possible. </p>
<p>During World War II, the British government sought to deceive the Nazi command about its plans for invasion – which entailed <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/06/06/d-day-would-be-nearly-impossible-pull-off-today-heres-why/">lying even to British allies</a>. The moral imperative of defeating Nazi Germany is generally thought to be important enough to justify this sort of deception.</p>
<p>This example also illustrates another theme: Deception might be permitted when it is in the context of an adversarial relationship in which truth-telling should not be expected. Lying to one’s own citizens may or may not be justifiable – but there seems to be very little wrong about lying to one’s <em>enemies</em> during wartime. </p>
<h2>Honorable lies?</h2>
<p>These ideas might be used in defense of some presidential lies. </p>
<p>During the 1930s, President Franklin D. Roosevelt was convinced that Hitler’s expansionism in Europe was a threat to the liberal democratic project itself, but he faced an electorate without any will to intervene in a European war. Roosevelt chose to insist publicly that he was opposed to any intervention – while doing everything he could to prepare for war and to covertly help the <a href="https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2017/01/04/how-franklin-d-roosevelt-prepared-us-for-wwii/">British cause</a>. </p>
<p>As early as 1948, historian <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24911690">Thomas Bailey</a> noted that Roosevelt had made a calculated choice to both prepare for war and insist he was doing no such thing. To be open about his view of Hitler would have likely led to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CVqTXJjmtmUC&pg=PA298&lpg=PA298&dq=roosevelt+lying&source=bl&ots=0frUEvK02d&sig=ACfU3U3djJZzxplhbGcQwVXwPOAqWJaa2w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiQ_cKC_evrAhUBip4KHUTjDqY4ChDoATAGegQICBAB#v=onepage&q=the%20man%20in%20the%20street&f=false">his defeat in the 1940 election</a>. </p>
<p>Before Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln made similar calculations. Lincoln’s lies regarding his negotiations with the Confederacy – described by <a href="https://www.megmott.com">Meg Mott</a>, a professor of political theory, as being “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/11/24/politics/presidents-lie/index.html">devious</a>” – may have been instrumental in preserving the United States as a single country.</p>
<p>Lincoln was willing to open peace negotiations with the Confederacy, knowing that much of his own party thought that only unconditional surrender by the South would settle the question of slavery. At one point, Lincoln wrote a note to his own party asserting – falsely – that there were “<a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0021.104/--hampton-roads-peace-conference-a-final-test-of-lincolns?rgn=main;view=fulltext">no peace commissioners</a>” being sent to a conference with the Confederacy. </p>
<p>A member of the Congress later noted that, in the absence of that note, the 13th Amendment – which ended the practice of chattel slavery – <a href="https://quod.lib.umich.edu/j/jala/2629860.0021.104/--hampton-roads-peace-conference-a-final-test-of-lincolns?rgn=main;view=fulltext">would not have been passed</a>.</p>
<h2>Good lies and bad lies</h2>
<p>The problem, of course, is that a great many presidential lies cannot be so easily linked to important purposes. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446331/original/file-20220214-15-66fael.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man in a dark suit speaks into microphones, with flags in the background." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446331/original/file-20220214-15-66fael.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446331/original/file-20220214-15-66fael.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446331/original/file-20220214-15-66fael.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446331/original/file-20220214-15-66fael.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=417&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446331/original/file-20220214-15-66fael.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446331/original/file-20220214-15-66fael.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/446331/original/file-20220214-15-66fael.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=524&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Former U.S. President Bill Clinton addresses the nation to apologize for misleading the country about his relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/president-bill-clinton-addresses-the-nation-from-the-rose-news-photo/462731481?adppopup=true">William Philpott/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>President Bill Clinton’s lies about his sexual activities were either simply self-serving or told to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=Fe88rwSW8ywC&pg=PT507&lpg=PT507&dq=bill+clinton+%22the+lie+saved+me%22&source=bl&ots=AJY7EQZHoq&sig=ACfU3U2uGl7_XXWvjxHXE5jYNH0XyzOZyA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjFsPGE0enrAhWTvJ4KHY_WB5MQ6AEwC3oECAIQAQ#v=onepage&q=bill%20clinton%20%22the%20lie%20saved%20me%22&f=false">preserve his presidency</a>. </p>
<p>Similarly, President Richard Nixon’s insistence that he knew nothing about <a href="https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/nixon-insists-that-he-is-not-a-crook">the Watergate break-in</a> was most likely a lie. John Dean, Nixon’s legal counsel, confirmed years later that the president <a href="https://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2014/08/07/john-dean-uncovers-what-nixon-knew-about-watergate">knew about, and approved of</a>, the plan to rob the Democratic National Committee headquarters. This scandal eventually ended Nixon’s presidency. </p>
<p>In both cases, these presidents faced a significant threat to their presidencies – and chose deception to save not the nation, but their own power. </p>
<h2>President Biden, President Trump and truth</h2>
<p>It is likely that President Trump lied <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2020/06/podcast-glenn-kessler-david-corn-lies-washington-post-fact-checker/">more than most presidents</a>. What is striking about his lies, however, is that they have tended to be told to defend his own <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/11/04/trump-male-ego-merkel-schroeder/">self-image or political viability</a> rather than in service of some central political good.</p>
<p>Indeed, some of President Trump’s more implausible lies seemed best understood as tests of loyalty; those in his circle who repeated his most obvious lies <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/26/14386068/why-does-trump-lie">demonstrated their loyalty to President Trump in doing so</a>. Most recently, he has attacked as <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/24/donald-trump-big-lie-american-democracy">disloyal</a> those members of the Republican Party who have not repeated his false claims about electoral fraud.</p>
<p>Recent studies indicate that President Biden, thus far, has not shown himself equal to President Trump <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidmarkowitz/2021/04/30/who-lied-more-during-their-first-100-days-biden-trump-or-obama/?sh=56acaa81a89d">in his deceptiveness</a>. He has, however, made deceptive and misleading claims on a number of topics, ranging from the costs of particular policies to his <a href="https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/list/?page=1&category=&ruling=false&speaker=joe-biden">own history and early life</a>. These lies seem somewhat unlike those told by Lincoln and by Roosevelt; they seem generally told in the interests of making a rhetorical point more powerful rather than as necessary means to an otherwise unobtainable political goal. They seem, in that respect, less morally justifiable than these earlier falsehoods.</p>
<p>A justification for these lies might be found with reference to practices which – like warfare or politics – necessarily involve conflict and gamesmanship. No one would expect honesty from the enemy side during warfare, and perhaps one should not from opponents in politics either. Some political philosophers have thought that, when politics becomes <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691057392/ethics-for-adversaries">an adversarial game</a>, politicians might be forgiven when they seek to deceive the other party. President Biden might rely upon this idea, and could note that the Republican Party is <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/10/bipartisanship-is-out-biden-its-about-time/">less open to bipartisan negotiation than at any time in its history</a>. </p>
<p>Even this last justification, however, may not be enough. Lying to one’s political opponents might be permitted in an adversarial context. The lies told by presidents are often addressed to constituents, and such deception seems harder to justify. </p>
<p>[<em>Over 140,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-140ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>And finally, even the most important of lies must be believed for it to be justifiable; a lie that is immediately recognized as such is unlikely to achieve the goal justifying that lie. This is an increasingly difficult burden. Modern presidents find it more <a href="https://www.issuelab.org/resources/15318/15318.pdf">challenging to lie</a> without having their lies recognized as untrue than presidents serving before the advent of social media and dedicated <a href="https://www.factcheck.org">fact-checking</a>. </p>
<p>If presidents must sometimes lie to defend important political values, then, it seems as though the good president must be both able to lie and able to lie well. </p>
<p><em>This is updated version of an article <a href="https://theconversation.com/from-washington-to-trump-all-presidents-have-told-lies-but-only-some-have-told-them-for-the-right-reasons-145995">first published on September 17, 2020</a></em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176663/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Blake receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.</span></em></p>A political philosopher argues that while all American presidents may lie, those who appear to lie for the public good are often celebrated.Michael Blake, Professor of Philosophy, Public Policy and Governance, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1502532020-11-18T19:42:47Z2020-11-18T19:42:47ZCurved origami offers a creative route to making robots and other mechanical devices<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370127/original/file-20201118-21-aiooq2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C8%2C5760%2C3811&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">These beautiful curves hold the key to a simple way to vary the stiffness of robotic grippers.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/folded-sheet-of-paper-against-gray-background-royalty-free-image/917468268?adppopup=true">njekaterina/DigitalVision via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em></p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Building robotic grippers that can firmly grasp heavy objects and also gently grasp delicate ones usually requires complicated sets of gears, hinges and motors. But it turns out that it’s also possible to make grippers out of simple sheets of flexible material with the right creases in them.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://jiang.lab.asu.edu/">lab at Arizona State University</a> has designed curved fold patterns that can change stiffness and flexibility. Flexible materials shaped with these patterns can be used to make simple, inexpensive robotic grippers, swimming robots and other mechanical devices. </p>
<p>People naturally vary the amount of stiffness needed to handle fragile and sturdy objects appropriately. Robots interact with the environment in the same way. Curved folding is a simple way to give robots the ability to vary the amount of stiffness they use to interact with different objects and environments.</p>
<p><a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/47/eabe2000">Our team’s idea</a> was inspired by origami, the art of paper folding. Origami can be stiff or flexible depending on its folding pattern, but it is hard to give origami a range of stiffnesses.</p>
<p>To overcome this problem, we replaced straight origami folding lines, or creases, with curved creases. By using multiple curved lines between two points rather than just one straight line, a curved origami structure can take on multiple shapes. We found that each shape has its own unique stiffness. Building a robotic gripper, for example, based on this design allows it to apply different amounts of force to objects depending on which curved crease the robot uses.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Four small plastic sheets with curved folds forming different structures" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=240&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/370096/original/file-20201118-19-1oz37u7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=302&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Examples of curved origami with robotics applications.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zirui Zhai, Arizona State University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Compared with other methods for variable stiffness, this method is simple and compact, which means it can be used to make small and light devices.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>Changing stiffness is important and ubiquitous in nature, and it’s a key variable in engineering. A heavy-duty robot gripper needs high stiffness, or low flexibility, to lift heavy objects. Other robot grippers need low stiffness, or high flexibility, to protect fragile objects.</p>
<p>Changing between a stiff state and a flexible state is critical in robots, but today’s adjustable stiffness systems are commonly bulky and cannot be used in micro-robots or soft robots. Micro-robots include insect-size robots being developed to monitor infrastructure and the environment. Soft robots under development are made of inflatable or flexible materials, which makes them safer to use alongside people. Our curved origami designs have a simple mechanical structure, making them easy to fabricate and control. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5fiRjtGrQjQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The authors demonstrate curved folds, variable stiffness and how curved folds can be used to make robots.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What other research is being done</h2>
<p>Traditional mechanical structures can also be used to vary stiffness: for example, grippers powered by variable pneumatics or electric motors. Our work is the first to achieve a full range of stiffness control with a simple structure. </p>
<p>The curved origami technique builds on our previous origami-inspired work, including <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/origami-batteries-and-accordion-sensors-could-power-smart-clothes/">origami-based stretchable lithium ion batteries</a> and origami-inspired structures that can be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1720171115">collapsed and expanded on demand</a>. </p>
<h2>What’s next</h2>
<p>We are adding more remote control functions to the curved origami structures to trigger the folding. We are considering several different methods such as pneumatic, magnetic and electronic control. With on-board control, curved origami can be applied to fields beyond robotics. One possibility is haptic devices that change their stiffness to give people realistic force feedback in virtual reality. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A series of six photos of a blue plastic square with pleated folds floating in water" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=166&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=166&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=166&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/369737/original/file-20201117-19-rxbh2s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=208&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A pneumatic, swimming robot made from plastic sheets with curved folds.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Zirui Zhai, Arizona State University</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/150253/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hanqing Jiang receives funding from the National Science Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Zirui Zhai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Curved origami isn’t just elegant art. It’s also a versatile way to vary the amount of force applied by robots and other machines.Hanqing Jiang, Professor of Mechanical Engineering, Arizona State UniversityZirui Zhai, Ph.D. student in Mechanical Engineering, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1218282019-08-14T12:25:29Z2019-08-14T12:25:29ZGaslighting: from partners to politicians – how to avoid becoming a victim<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287989/original/file-20190814-136217-172g56c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Controversial picture of President Trump and the First Lady holding an orphaned child following the mass shooting in El Paso. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">The White House</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/8/5/20754770/trump-el-paso-dayton-speech-white-house-mental-illness-video-games-guns">statement on the horrific mass shooting</a> in El Paso on August 3 that killed 22 people and injured 24 covered a lot of ground. From video games and mental illness to the death penalty, the president drew attention to many variables – but not to the semi-automatic guns that are often used in mass shootings. Instead, <a href="https://twitter.com/atrupar/status/1158381429925044230">he claimed</a> that “mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun”.</p>
<p>The response angered many people who see tighter gun control as the only way to prevent such tragic events. Some even <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/8/5/20754770/trump-el-paso-dayton-speech-white-house-mental-illness-video-games-guns">accused Trump of “gaslighting”</a> – a psychological manipulation to erode someone’s sense of self and sanity – something that’s happened <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-is-gaslighting-america-heres-how-to-survive-2017-3?r=US&IR=T">many times before</a>.</p>
<p>Gaslighting typically <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-gaslighting-mean-107888">refers to intimate relationships</a>. It’s a way of controlling someone by creating false narratives – for example, that they are irrational or crazy. If such lies are repeated constantly, victims may get confused and start believing there really is something wrong with them. Confusion, diversion, distraction and disinformation can similarly be used to gaslight an entire society. So how can you tell if you are being gaslighted, and how do you avoid it in the first place?</p>
<p>Most people around us act in good faith. We cooperate with each other in conversations by conforming to norms such as honesty and relevance. We tell the truth and we do not mention irrelevancies without good reason. When people violate those maxims, we normally doubt their sincerity or honesty. But in gaslighting, lying is used in combination with persistent denial, misdirection and contradiction in a way that can make us doubt ourselves instead. </p>
<p>While politicians have always tried to divert attention from issues they consider threatening or uncomfortable, more than 10,000 claims during the Trump presidency <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2019/04/29/president-trump-has-made-more-than-false-or-misleading-claims/">have been judged</a> to be false or misleading. This puts Trump – and many other leaders – <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle">in conflict with the cooperative norms</a> that make society work.</p>
<p>When confusion, diversion, distraction and disinformation are ramped up so they become an omnipresent pollutant of public debate, we may end up losing faith in the very possibility of truthful discussion – or in our own views.</p>
<p>Take the Russian-made Buk missile which downed Malaysian Airlines MH17 in 2014. Pro-Kremlin websites engaged in massive gaslighting by <a href="https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2018/09/17/russia-missile-that-shot-down-flight-mh17-was-ukrainian/">first denying it was a Russian missile</a>, then saying it was an Ukrainian attack. Later on, they claimed the pilot had <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/24/qa-mh17-investigation-russian-missile-aircraft-ukraine">deliberately crashed</a> the plane, and finally they said it was all part of a <a href="https://brill.com/abstract/book/edcoll/9789004364417/BP000016.xml">vast conspiracy</a> to turn the world against Russia.</p>
<p>Most of those claims don’t fit together and each is implausible. But the cumulative effect is one of confusion and distraction <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-mh17-the-eu-must-act-against-putin-and-stop-importing-russian-gas-29439">from the Russian involvement</a>.</p>
<h2>Clear signs</h2>
<p>So how can you know if you’re being gaslighted? In a close relationship, such as that with a partner or a boss, it will involve feeling confused and depressed. You may also be spending <a href="https://www.vox.com/first-person/2018/12/19/18140830/gaslighting-relationships-politics-explained">a lot of time apologising</a> or making excuses for the gaslighter – even if you deep down know something is wrong. </p>
<p>If you complain about your experience to the gaslighter, <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-does-gaslighting-mean-107888">you’d most likely be told it’s not real</a> – you could even be scolded for making false accusations or for being too sensitive.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287988/original/file-20190814-136190-1v86gnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/287988/original/file-20190814-136190-1v86gnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287988/original/file-20190814-136190-1v86gnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287988/original/file-20190814-136190-1v86gnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=559&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287988/original/file-20190814-136190-1v86gnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287988/original/file-20190814-136190-1v86gnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/287988/original/file-20190814-136190-1v86gnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=703&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The term gaslighting comes from the 1944 film Gaslight, in which Ingrid Bergman plays a character who is manipulated by her husband.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>When it comes to politics, the signs are similar. You may feel confused and alone in the world, assuming nobody understands your point of view and that it must therefore be wrong. Take racism. You may have known exactly what it is. But when Trump <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/15/donald-trump-congresswomen-republicans-ocasio-cortez-tlaib-pressley-omar">accused US Congresswomen of colour</a> of “racist hatred” in response to himself being criticised for racist remarks against them, this could have sown confusion about what racism actually means. </p>
<p>It is similarly hard to complain to a gaslighting leader. Several journalists who have questioned Trump <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/08/white-house-bans-cnn-reporter-jim-acosta-after-a-confrontation-with-trump-.html">have simply been banned</a> from his conferences and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/13/cnn-sues-president-trump-and-white-house-for-banning-reporter-jim-acosta.html">told they do fake news</a>.</p>
<h2>Prevention</h2>
<p>By the time you notice you are being gaslighted, a lot of damage may have already been done. There is evidence that prevention is actually better than cure – even in the context of pure disinformation. My colleagues and I have repeatedly shown that people can be <a href="https://esrc.ukri.org/news-events-and-publications/news/news-items/inoculating-against-fake-news/">“inoculated” against being misled</a> if they are taught to recognise misleading rhetorical techniques. </p>
<p>For gaslighting, such techniques include <a href="https://www.pressgazette.co.uk/mail-onlines-katie-hopkins-there-is-no-such-thing-as-fact-any-more-there-is-no-truth/">open disbelief in facts or evidence</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-49039465/trump-s-send-her-back-denial-and-what-actually-happened">persistent denial</a> of having done or said something, no matter what evidence points to the contrary. </p>
<p>Gaslighting also involves diversion, typically by triggering an emotional response. When Trump repeatedly <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/nov/19/mike-pence-booed-at-hamilton-performance-then-hears-diversity-plea">criticised the cast of a Broadway play</a> via Twitter after the actors pleaded for a “diverse America” at the end of a show, many people felt outraged and some <a href="https://twitter.com/joshgad/status/799977192381972480">rose to defend the actors</a>. </p>
<p>But most people missed the fact that this Twitter event <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donald-trump-hamilton-settlement-university-fraud-mike-pence-scandals-a7429316.html">coincided with Trump agreeing</a> to a US$25m settlement (including a US$1m penalty) of lawsuits against his defunct Trump University. An analysis of Google Trends <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211368117300700?via%3Dihub">confirmed the success of this diversion</a>, because the public showed far greater interest in the Broadway controversy than the Trump University settlement.</p>
<p>So the next time a politician says something outrageous, do not just be outraged – look for the real event that this shiny object is trying to distract you from. My colleagues and I have recently shown, in an as-yet unpublished paper, that Trump <a href="https://www.salon.com/2019/08/04/trump-dominates-the-media-through-twitter-we-knew-this-but-now-theres-science/">masterfully diverts the media</a> and the public from information that is threatening to him. Knowing that is a first step in preventing gaslighting. You can’t be gaslighted if you don’t get confused and you won’t get confused if you are not misled in the first place.</p>
<p>In her incisive <a href="https://idanlandau.files.wordpress.com/2014/12/arendt-truth-and-politics.pdf">analysis of totalitarianism</a>, the philosopher and political theorist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt">Hannah Arendt</a> warned that in an incomprehensible world created by gaslighting, people “at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and that nothing was true”.</p>
<p>Truth is at the heart of liberal democracy. No amount of gaslighting should divert us from that.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/121828/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephan Lewandowsky receives funding from the Australian Research Council. </span></em></p>You can’t be gaslighted if you don’t get confused and you won’t get confused if you are not misled in the first place.Stephan Lewandowsky, Chair of Cognitive Psychology, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1020572018-08-31T12:27:13Z2018-08-31T12:27:13ZThe ‘Braveheart effect’ – and how companies manipulate our desire for freedom<blockquote>
<p>They may take our lives, but they will never take our freedom!</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This often parodied quote from Mel Gibson’s William Wallace in <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112573/">the film Braveheart</a> is something of a contradiction, and yet its sentiment is easy to understand. Nothing gets our hackles up more than being told that we have no choice over something. The powerful urge we get to regain a lost or threatened freedom, even at great cost, is formally called “<a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1967-08061-000">reactance</a>”. I call it the “Braveheart effect”.</p>
<p>This effect is likely to kick in if we are told we must do something or that we can’t do something. It can be triggered by being told our <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.1975.37.2.411?journalCode=prxa">personality</a> or <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167203261884">gender</a> means we will necessarily act in a certain way. Anything that makes us feel our freedom is threatened awakens powerful forces.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hIvRkjOd1f8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
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<p>Anger wells up. We mentally rail against whatever or whoever threatens our freedom. What we have been pushed into tastes bitter. What we have lost smells sweeter.</p>
<p>We then act to restore our sense of freedom. We may do what we were told not to. If a judge tells jurors that they have no choice but to disregard inadmissible evidence, it can increase the chance they are <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1978-29222-001">influenced by this evidence</a>. We may also confound predictions. We may <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.1975.37.2.411?journalCode=prxa">choose the opposite</a> of what we are told someone of our personality type would choose, or <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11414376">outperform an unhelpful stereotype</a> of what is expected of our gender.</p>
<h2>What affects the Braveheart effect?</h2>
<p>This effect only tends to occur if we feel capable of <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0146167203261884">restoring our freedom</a>. Otherwise we rationalise our actions (“Oh, that’s what I wanted to do anyway”). If the Braveheart effect occurs, its strength depends on a number of factors.</p>
<p>First, the more we sense an actual person is thwarting our freedom, <a href="https://research.tue.nl/en/publications/does-it-make-a-difference-who-tells-you-what-to-do-exploring-the-">the greater the effect is</a>. We will experience a greater Braveheart effect if someone tells us to do something in person than if we receive the same message in written form.</p>
<p>Second, the effect depends on how the message restricting our freedom is phrased. The use of forceful and controlling language (should, ought, must, need), results <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2007.00297.x">in a greater Braveheart effect</a> than non-controlling language (consider, can, could, may).</p>
<p>Third, it depends on who you are. The extent to which you experience the effect is <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2466/pr0.1989.64.3c.1323?journalCode=prxa">a personality trait</a>. Questionnaires <a href="http://www.psyc.jmu.edu/assessment/research/pdfs/Brown1_nera09.pdf">can measure it</a>. Some people are more disposed to experience the Braveheart effect than others. </p>
<p>Finally, culture plays a role. People from more individualistic cultures (such as Britain) <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109001334">experience a stronger Braveheart effect</a> when their personal freedom is threatened than when their group freedom is threatened. In contrast, people from more collectivist cultures (such as China) <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103109001334">show the opposite pattern</a>.</p>
<h2>Deeper questions</h2>
<p>But why do we experience the Braveheart effect? Social psychologist <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/73535/the-righteous-mind-by-jonathan-haidt/9780307455772/">Jonathan Haidt argues</a> that our ancient ancestors had to solve the problem of living in small groups with others who, given the chance, would try to dominate and constrain them. He proposes that natural selection favoured those who responded to such attempts with righteous anger. Those experiencing the Braveheart effect would be less likely to lose out on food and mates.</p>
<p>We may also wonder why we have a sense of free will to be touchy about in the first place. There are <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40547-017-0085-8">a range of theories</a>, but research has found that if your belief in free will is reduced you are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18181791">more likely to cheat</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19141628">act aggressively</a>, and are <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19141628">less likely to help others</a>. It could be that we evolved the feeling of having free choice because those who did reaped the benefits of a more cohesive community.</p>
<h2>Why is the Braveheart effect important?</h2>
<p>One reason we need to know about this effect is so we can recognise when we are experiencing it. We can then pause and rationally consider whether our reaction is helpful, rather than just be swept along by it.</p>
<p>For example, there is an increasing awareness that companies may use <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/16066359.2018.1474206">dark nudges</a> to make us <a href="https://theconversation.com/sludge-how-corporations-nudge-us-into-spending-more-101969">act against our interests</a> and use insights from behavioural science to <a href="https://theconversation.com/social-networking-sites-may-be-controlling-your-mind-heres-how-to-take-charge-88516">hook us on their products</a>. As we become aware of this, the Braveheart effect may be triggered. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234266/original/file-20180830-195307-s7gzvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/234266/original/file-20180830-195307-s7gzvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234266/original/file-20180830-195307-s7gzvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234266/original/file-20180830-195307-s7gzvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234266/original/file-20180830-195307-s7gzvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234266/original/file-20180830-195307-s7gzvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/234266/original/file-20180830-195307-s7gzvy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=533&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">When does a nudge become a shove?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/giant-hand-pushing-business-executive-creative-375167296">Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>Take the revelation that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/17/data-war-whistleblower-christopher-wylie-faceook-nix-bannon-trump">Facebook data was being used to manipulate users</a>. Public realisation of this clearly triggered the Braveheart effect in many. Some will have leapt to “<a href="https://theconversation.com/deletefacebook-is-still-feeding-the-beast-but-there-are-ways-to-overcome-surveillance-capitalism-93874">#deleteFacebook</a>”. Yet, as using Facebook has both <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140673611609197.pdf">pros</a> and cons, the decision to delete it needs <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/mar/20/facebook-is-it-time-we-all-deleted-our-accounts">reflective consideration</a>.</p>
<p>Another reason to know about the Braveheart effect is to be able to recognise when it is not happening to us, but perhaps should be. For example, knowledge of the Braveheart effect can be used against us. Companies try to develop adverts that don’t trigger it. They don’t want you pushing back against their message.</p>
<p>They know to start adverts by <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24972121">inoculating us against</a> the Braveheart effect. They do this by forewarning us of a potential threat to choice. They know to end adverts with a <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/hcre.12007">restoration postscript</a>, telling us we are free to decide for ourselves what is good for us. They also know the Braveheart effect is reduced if their advert helps us take <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3694311/">their perspective</a> and to <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2010.01381.x">empathise with them</a>.</p>
<p>Being mindful of the Braveheart effect can help us to be active decision makers guided by reason, rather than passive victims of evolution or corporations. Yet even the dictates of reason can <a href="https://theconversation.com/steven-pinker-lauds-reason-but-people-need-freedom-this-might-not-end-well-91928">trigger the Braveheart effect</a> in us. As the novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky observed, we may sometimes value freedom over everything else. Is freedom a means to an end, or an end in itself?</p>
<hr>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/steven-pinker-lauds-reason-but-people-need-freedom-this-might-not-end-well-91928">Steven Pinker lauds reason, but people need freedom – this might not end well</a>
</strong>
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</p>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/102057/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon McCarthy-Jones receives funding from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation.</span></em></p>We’re willing to fight for our freedom even at great cost.Simon McCarthy-Jones, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology and Neuropsychology, Trinity College DublinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/889212017-12-13T11:24:03Z2017-12-13T11:24:03ZWhat ‘Last Tango in Paris’ teaches my students about sexual ethics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198853/original/file-20171212-9451-pqxrp0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Director Bernardo Bertolucci, left, discusses a scene from "Last Tango in Paris" with leading actor Marlon Brando and actress Maria Schneider.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today’s news is awash with accounts of behind-the-scenes sexual assaults involving such prominent <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/seth-macfarlane-family-guy-called-weinstein-spacey-ratner-rose-before-tidal-wave-allegations-1060966">figures</a> as producer Harvey Weinstein, director Brett Ratner and actor Kevin Spacey. In some cases, colleagues and friends of the accused have expressed disbelief, as in the cases of popular news <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/29/arts/television/matt-lauer-charlie-rose.html">personalities</a> Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer. </p>
<p>In my teaching of ethics at Indiana University, my students and I devote a great deal of attention to classic works in philosophy, such as the ethical <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/book/10.1002/9781444367072">writings</a> of Plato, Aristotle and Tolstoy. But far more recent events provide ample opportunity for ethical reflection and conversation.</p>
<p>One of the most notorious cases of sexual manipulation took place not off screen but right in front of the camera. Its stark visibility provides an opportunity to explore darker sides of human relationships that are usually hidden from view.</p>
<h2>‘Last Tango in Paris’</h2>
<p>The manipulation in question took place during the filming of one of the 1970s most widely discussed and debated films, “Last Tango in Paris.” </p>
<p>The 1972 <a href="http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Last-Tango-in-Paris.html">film</a> recounts the story of a middle-aged American hotelier whose wife has recently taken her own life. The man (portrayed by Marlon Brando) meets a young French woman (Maria Schneider), and the two begin a sexual relationship that he insists must remain anonymous. </p>
<p>One day, the young woman returns to the site of their encounters only to discover that he has packed his things and departed unannounced. Later he returns, tells that he loves her and asks her name. She pulls a gun from a drawer, tells him her name and then shoots him. As the film ends, she is planning her testimony as a victim of attempted rape by a stranger.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198854/original/file-20171212-9410-ilautl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198854/original/file-20171212-9410-ilautl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198854/original/file-20171212-9410-ilautl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198854/original/file-20171212-9410-ilautl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=931&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198854/original/file-20171212-9410-ilautl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198854/original/file-20171212-9410-ilautl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198854/original/file-20171212-9410-ilautl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1169&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Bernardo Bertolucci.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The manipulation involved a simulated on-screen sexual <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-entertainment/wp/2016/12/05/why-the-last-tango-in-paris-rape-scene-is-generating-such-an-outcry-now/?utm_term=.3728713c4112">encounter</a> that proved all too real, in large part because Schneider was not informed about it in advance, and which she – as expected by Bertolucci and Brando – found unbearably degrading.</p>
<p>The film achieved notoriety in part because of its remarkably explicit portrayal of sex and sexual violence. Attempts were made in countries such as the U.K. and the U.S. to <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-38219888">censor</a> the film. Director Bernardo Bertolucci’s native Italy initiated <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1973/02/16/archives/italy-lifts-last-tango-ban.html">criminal</a> proceedings against him.</p>
<p>Not only was the film banned, but prints in Italy were seized, all copies were ordered destroyed and Bertolucci received a suspended prison <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/Century_Of_Films/Story/0,4135,368319,00.html">sentence</a>.</p>
<h2>Manipulation</h2>
<p>The relationship between actors Schneider and Brando was marked by a great imbalance of power. Schneider was 19 when the movie was filmed, while Brando was 48. He was an international star, while she was an unknown. Brando was paid US$3 million, but Schneider received <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/movies/revisted-last-tango-in-paris-rape-scene-causes-internet-outcry.html">$4,000</a>. </p>
<p>Years after the film was released, Schneider revealed that she felt manipulated by Bertolucci. Reflecting on the experience in 2007, she told the <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-469646/I-felt-raped-Brando.html">London Daily Mail</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Some mornings on set Bertolucci would say hello and on other days, he wouldn’t say anything at all. I was too young to know better. Marlon later said he [too] felt manipulated, and he was Marlon Brando, so you can imagine how I felt. People thought I was the girl in the movie, but that wasn’t me.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>In retrospect, she said, “I should have called my agent or had my lawyer come to the set, because you can’t force someone to do something that isn’t in the script, but at the time, I didn’t know that. Marlon said, ‘Maria, don’t worry, it’s just a movie,’ but I was crying real tears.”</p>
<h2>The aftermath</h2>
<p>Life after the film was difficult for Schneider. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I felt very sad because I was treated like a sex symbol but I wanted to be recognized as an actress. The whole scandal and aftermath of the film turned me a little crazy and I had a breakdown.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Though she starred in other films, including 1975’s “The Passenger” with Jack Nicholson, she struggled with depression and drug addiction and even attempted <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/movies/04schneider.html">suicide</a> on at least one occasion.</p>
<p>Throughout her subsequent <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/movies/04schneider.html">career</a>, Schneider served as an advocate for improving the experience of women in the film industry. She worked for an organization that aims to assist aging actors and directors who are down on their luck. After a career that included approximately 50 films, she died in 2011 at the age of 58. </p>
<h2>Enduring ethical insights</h2>
<p>Schneider’s story reveals several important lessons that deserve particular attention today, when so many reported cases of sexual manipulation occur behind the scenes. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198857/original/file-20171212-9426-1y0nkgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/198857/original/file-20171212-9426-1y0nkgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198857/original/file-20171212-9426-1y0nkgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198857/original/file-20171212-9426-1y0nkgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198857/original/file-20171212-9426-1y0nkgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198857/original/file-20171212-9426-1y0nkgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/198857/original/file-20171212-9426-1y0nkgr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=562&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">There are important lessons in Maria Schneider’s story.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/files</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>First, although the world of screenplays, cameras and big screens may seem pure make-believe, the actors whose bodies and feelings are portrayed on film remain real. What transpires in front of the camera, as in the case of Schneider, can have enduring and sometimes devastating consequences.</p>
<p>Second, everyone – perhaps especially those involved in the production of news and entertainment – needs to be reminded to take personal responsibility for the protection of human dignity. The mere fact that some individuals happen to be famous, powerful or wealthy in no way absolves them of the responsibility to respect the humanity of others. </p>
<p>In fact, the sense of being above others is one of the most important risk factors for inhumane conduct in any sphere of life, which is why great writers since <a href="https://www.owleyes.org/text/iliad/read/book-i">Homer</a> have been highlighting the common humanity of people of all cultures and walks of life. Philosophers such as <a href="http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/symposium.html">Plato</a> recognized thousands of years ago how problematic it is to treat any person as a tool for another’s gratification.</p>
<p>As my students and I discover in our study of philosophers, the double life of Brando’s character – apparently shared by many of today’s accused abusers – is an intrinsically dangerous one, at least morally speaking. Integrity means more than observing a code of behavior. It means being the same person in all spheres of life, whether in front of the camera or behind it, in a room full of people or one-on-one. </p>
<p>The instant we begin to think that it is acceptable to treat people as <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1088-4963.1995.tb00032.x/abstract">objects</a> – in any setting, ever – is the moment we begin to lose our moral bearings. An object is a thing, not a person, and treating someone as an object stunts the humanity of everyone involved.</p>
<h2>Dangers of objectification</h2>
<p>Schneider longed to revisit her <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/2011/feb/04/local/la-me-maria-schneider-20110204">decision</a> to star in “Last Tango in Paris,” declaring that if she had the opportunity to do it over again, “I would have said no.” </p>
<p>Both Schneider’s experience as an actor in helping to create the film and the viewer’s experience of watching it provide powerful warnings against the dangers of objectification. Though each of us is biologically human, there is another dimension of our being that must be protected and enriched if we are to realize the full measure of our humanity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/88921/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Gunderman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The important lessons from one of the most notorious cases of sexual manipulation took place not off-screen but right in front of the camera.Richard Gunderman, Chancellor's Professor of Medicine, Liberal Arts, and Philanthropy, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/709612017-11-20T17:04:43Z2017-11-20T17:04:43ZHow cult leader Charles Manson was able to manipulate his ‘family’ to commit murder<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/151986/original/image-20170106-18647-1rpkwes.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=7%2C8%2C958%2C977&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Charles Manson: cult leader extraordinaire.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/billstrain/5391890373/sizes/l">mrbill78636/flickr.com</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Charles Manson, who <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-42016704">died</a> on November 19 aged 83, was a cult leader par excellence. Back in his heyday, he recruited a devoted set of followers to his “family”, some of whom went on to murder people for him and whose tragic story has inspired numerous books, films and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2071645/">TV programmes</a>. But what did people see in Manson and how did he manage to manipulate and control people so successfully and with such terrible consequences?</p>
<p>It is said that “love is in the eye of the beholder” and there’s no better example of this than the love and devotion that intelligent and well-educated people have for cult leaders who portray themselves as the next messiah but who look to the rest of the world like deceitful and abusive sociopaths. </p>
<p>Of course people do not see an advert for an “abusive and murderous cult” or “how to end your life in trafficked drudgery” but instead are told about an inspired and charismatic leader whose vision and purpose can transform their lives for the better and the whole of humanity with it. So people go along to meet this extraordinary person full of hope and optimism – after all their friend or the persuasive man or woman who told them you all those great things about the guy can’t be totally wrong, surely? </p>
<p>This is what psychologists call <a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Optimism_Bias.html?id=5o2SzNJOW-MC&redir_esc=y">optimism bias</a> which indicates that we are wired to “look on the bright side” and in the case of people recruited into cults this is also because of what they have been promised and what they then hope and expect to find. </p>
<p>So Manson may have looked sinister to you or I – but we were not expecting a visionary messiah with a promised, powerful message and followers who look just like us. For those who were and choose to believe in this wonderful, life-affirming opportunity, the search for salvation in bondage to the cult leader had begun.</p>
<h2>A messiah figure</h2>
<p>The key to Manson’s control, as with all cult leaders, was to ensure that followers not only saw him as an all-powerful, messiah-like figure, but that followers see themselves as members of a superior elite that has the answer to the world’s problems – even if that means killing the rest of the world along the way. Manson persuaded his followers to commit murders to trigger <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-manson-california-20500123-story.html">“Helter Skelter”</a> where there would be a “race war” which would elevate him to world leadership. He espoused a rambling, incoherent apocalyptic world view that was nevertheless completing captivating for his followers.</p>
<p>Over time the Manson-type cult leader becomes a dominant part of the follower’s identity and their self-esteem. The whole reason for their existence and survival is completely tied up with the leader and the cult. Manson became the core and central part of his followers’ lives – he provided a “family” and fulflled their basic needs. His “family members” acted to further that critical part of themselves that was bound up with him – and with terrible results.</p>
<p>Normal critical thinking and morals go out of the window. This explains why cult followers themselves can do terrible things or witness barbaric acts and do nothing to stop them. If you act against Manson you are acting against yourself and all that you’ve invested in him. After all there’s no going back, is there? This means there is no limit in practice – even if that means murder as in the case of some of the Manson cult members. </p>
<p>These terrible crimes were the ultimate act of loyalty and reinforcement of the cult identity for the followers – like suicide bombers this probably felt like the best thing they could have possibly done at the time. But the Manson followers were living in an altered state of consciousness and existence – aided also by drugs – and where the normal rules of society just didn’t apply in the cosy “family” that Manson had constructed.</p>
<h2>The lesson of the Manson ‘family’</h2>
<p>Many of the Manson followers went to prison for their crimes, and some felt <a href="http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-charles-manson-murders-where-they-are-now-snap-htmlstory.html">tremendous guilt</a> later about their actions. But what is really frightening is how it is all too easy to be duped and sucked into believing that your life is dependent on an amazing leader with such wonderful insights who in reality is a murderous psychopath. Followers forget who they really are, their other interests, family and friends and do terrible things for the cause and leader they love. </p>
<p>The lessons from the Manson “family” are a warning to us all: question everything, think critically and don’t believe that any single person has all the answers. Be wary of charisma and charm and people who are devoted to a messiah-like leader because while it is great to believe in big beautiful ideas it can also be the road to cult slavery and servitude. </p>
<p>Manson’s lasting legacy is hopefully that people will increasingly see through such cult leaders quicker and avoid them more easily than the followers who devoted their lives and murdered others to prove themselves as true devotees.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/70961/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Linda Dubrow-Marshall is a member of the Advisory Board of the International Cultic Studies Association and co-founded the Re-Entry Therapy, Information and Referral Network (RETIRN) UK which offers advice and counselling to individuals and families affected by harmful groups or relationships (<a href="http://www.retirn.com">www.retirn.com</a>). Linda is a registered accredited counsellor/psychotherapist with the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy and a registered counselling and clinical psychologist with the Health and Care Professions Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rod Dubrow-Marshall received funding from the Economic and Social Research Council for the recent Social Science Festival event "Coercive Persuasion in the Era of Fake News". He is Visiting Fellow in the Criminal Justice Hub in the Directorate of Social Sciences. He is a member of the board of directors of the International Cultic Studies Association and is co-editor of the International Journal of Cultic Studies (<a href="http://www.icsahome.com">www.icsahome.com</a>). Rod also co-founded the Re-Entry Therapy, Information and Referral Network (RETIRN) UK which offers advice and counselling to individuals and families affected by harmful groups or relationships (<a href="http://www.retirn.com">www.retirn.com</a>).</span></em></p>Charles Manson, who has died aged 83, was a cult leader par excellence.Linda Dubrow-Marshall, Lecturer in Applied Psychology, University of SalfordRod Dubrow-Marshall, Professor of Social Psychology and Visiting Fellow, Criminal Justice Hub, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/871962017-11-14T14:54:25Z2017-11-14T14:54:25ZHow to be more persuasive – according to science<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194583/original/file-20171114-27616-1bb96bi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'So...what do you say?'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Everett Collection</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Whether it’s getting your partner to do more housework or making your colleagues back your latest idea, we all end up spending a considerable amount of time trying to persuade or even manipulate others.</p>
<p>So can science offer any clever tricks to get people to do what we want, without resorting to bullying them? It’s complicated, but some 30 years of psychological research suggests there might just be a few methods that are worth a try. </p>
<iframe id="noa-web-audio-player" style="border: none" src="https://embed-player.newsoveraudio.com/v4?key=x84olp&id=https://theconversation.com/how-to-be-more-persuasive-according-to-science-87196&bgColor=F5F5F5&color=D8352A&playColor=D8352A" width="100%" height="110px"></iframe>
<h2>Use a person’s body against them</h2>
<p>Got a date coming up? Maybe you should consider taking them to see a horror movie.
“<a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1963-06064-001">Misattribution of arousal</a>” is a popular theory in social psychology that suggests people sometimes mislabel feelings from their body. For example, you experience an elevated heart rate when you are anxious, but also when you are excited. Psychologists have therefore been experimenting on whether it is possible to use this idea to manipulate individuals into thinking they are experiencing particular emotions, such as believing they are attracted when they’re actually scared.</p>
<p>In one such study, an “attractive female interviewer” asked male passers-by to complete a questionnaire <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Donald_Dutton/publication/18709788_Some_Evidence_for_Heightened_Sexual_Attraction_under_Conditions_of_High_Anxiety/links/00b7d5232780cc7ca5000000.pdf">while standing on a rickety suspension bridge</a> that hung high above a gorge. She also asked another set of men to complete the questionnaire on a sturdy, low-hanging bridge (not likely to evoke fear). She told them they could call her afterwards if they wanted more details on the study. Amusingly, significantly more men called the interviewer if they had met her on the fear-inducing bridge. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194545/original/file-20171114-27573-9jnj3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194545/original/file-20171114-27573-9jnj3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194545/original/file-20171114-27573-9jnj3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194545/original/file-20171114-27573-9jnj3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194545/original/file-20171114-27573-9jnj3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194545/original/file-20171114-27573-9jnj3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194545/original/file-20171114-27573-9jnj3s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Strange feeling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">BlueSkyImage/Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Similar studies have found that men also rate women as more attractive if they have had an <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/rev/69/5/379/">injection of adrenaline</a> (that they were told was vitamins), <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01650604">been startled</a>, <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1982-05734-001">doing exercise or listening to a taped story</a> designed to cause shock. Most of these studies looked at men’s reaction to women, but the effect <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF01650604">seems to hold true</a> for women too.</p>
<p>It was first thought that this happens because participants <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1975-26821-001">experienced arousal from an unclear source</a>, and looked to the situation they were in to provide context. Later reviews <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rainer_Reisenzein/publication/16840488_The_Schachter_theory_of_emotion_Two_decades_later/links/5425723f0cf2e4ce9403816d.pdf">have suggested</a> that, while it may not – in fact – be possible to implant an emotion through suggestion, it is possible to intensify pre-existing feelings in this way.</p>
<h2>A compulsion for reciprocity</h2>
<p>Somewhat counter-intuitively, if you want to get something from someone – you should give them something yourself. </p>
<p>The “<a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2092623?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">reciprocity norm</a>” describes the way people feel (often strongly) indebted to a person who has bestowed a gift or favour upon them until they repay in kind. Charities have been using this principle to increase donations for decades: providing an unconditional gift before a donation (even a humble paperclip) can <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-0262.2007.00800.x/abstract">increase the amount given by up to 75%</a>, as it unconsciously obliges the individual to give back.</p>
<p>However, one must be careful using this strategy. Providing external incentives (like a gift) when trying to get something, <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10589297">can actually decrease giving</a> in certain situations – particularly with respect to charitable giving. This is because getting a reward can undermine the intrinsic altruistic motivations for giving (making it more like getting repaid for your charity). Or, because it takes away <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0167487012000530">another strong motivator for giving</a>: looking generous in the eyes of others (taking a gift could make you look less “pure”).</p>
<h2>Use clever language</h2>
<p>Another way to beguile someone involves picking your words to help you maximise your chances in a very subtle way. For instance, in an argument, your choice of pronouns can surprisingly <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01639.x">affect how people react</a> to what you say.</p>
<p>Using statements beginning with “you” (“you should have finished that report”) will <a href="http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/jscp.1995.14.1.53">evoke more antagonism in the recipient</a> as opposed to statements beginning with “I” (“I am stressed because the report is not done”). This is because removing the “you” removes the accusatory element. </p>
<p>Another linguistic trick is to use nouns rather than verbs when discussing an outcome you want to happen. In one study people were asked “how important is it to you to be a voter in tomorrow’s election?” versus “how important is it to you to vote in tomorrow’s election?” When people were asked about “being a voter”, <a href="http://guilfordjournals.com/doi/abs/10.1521/soco.22.2.193.35463">this primed their self-identity</a> as a person who votes. The people who were asked about being a “voter” were 11% more likely to vote in a state election the next day, compared to those who were asked about “voting”.</p>
<p>There are also various other body and language tricks you can employ that have been shown to increase people’s liking or trust in you, such as subtly <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1999-05479-002">mimicking people’s body posture</a>, looking people <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/1986-27160-001">in the eye more frequently</a> and <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03637758409390188">saying their name</a> more often.</p>
<h2>Use rewards and punishments variably</h2>
<p>Does your loved one need some “<a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-21805-000">behaviour shaping</a>”? Maybe a bit more hanging up the bathmat, and a bit less using your toothbrush? We all know that you can increase <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2004-21805-000">the likelihood that someone will do something</a> by rewarding it, and decrease it through punishment. </p>
<p>But, <a href="https://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html">operant conditioning psychology</a> shows that for prolonged manipulation, it is better not to reward or punish <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2004-21805-000/"><em>every</em> instance of the behaviour</a>. So if you want someone to keep doing something (or to stop doing something), you can simply alter the schedule by which you dole out rewards or punishments to maximise their compliance.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194562/original/file-20171114-27632-1ezqshy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/194562/original/file-20171114-27632-1ezqshy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194562/original/file-20171114-27632-1ezqshy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194562/original/file-20171114-27632-1ezqshy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194562/original/file-20171114-27632-1ezqshy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194562/original/file-20171114-27632-1ezqshy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/194562/original/file-20171114-27632-1ezqshy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘You didn’t seem to care last week.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/upset-woman-showing-dirty-dishes-friend-387513652?src=HShGk63_9lXKOd8JAn3_eA-1-14">wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A variable reinforcement schedule like this works by the slightly creepy “will they, won’t they” principle – where <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/1975-11296-000">the uncertainty makes people learn faster</a> and maintain a behaviour longer once the reward or punishment is removed. In the same way, not knowing how many more plays you need before you win is part of what makes <a href="http://europepmc.org/abstract/med/11447569">gambling and the lottery so addictive</a>.</p>
<h2>Ask for something you don’t want</h2>
<p>A large body of popular research suggests that if you are trying to get something, you may help your case by also asking for something you don’t want. The “foot-in-the-door method” refers to the fact that, once a person has agreed to a very small request, <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0022103174900535">they are more likely to agree to another</a>, much larger request – significantly more so than if they were only posed with the large request.</p>
<p>It was first suggested this must occur because people use their own behaviour as a cue to their internal attitudes. Since they were not pressured externally into agreeing, the person unconsciously infers their acquiescence is due to a positive attitude towards the asker or the issue.</p>
<p>This effect, however, seems to hold even when the second request is of a completely <a href="https://insights.ovid.com/personality-social-psychology/jpspy/1966/08/000/compliance-without-pressure/10/00005205">different type, or when made by a different person</a>. Given this, it was thought that perhaps the first “yes” changes the individual’s own disposition towards saying yes to things in general (“I am clearly such a yes man”). </p>
<p>On the flip side, if you ask for something outrageously large that a person would never agree to, you actually <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=buy.optionToBuy&id=1975-11600-001">raise your chances of agreement</a> to a second smaller request. This may also be a form of reciprocity effect: the person being asked is <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03637759909376482">compelled to make a compromise</a>, in response to the asker making a concession.</p>
<p>In sum, social psychology may not change your life … but it may just help you get the last biscuit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87196/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Harriet Dempsey-Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Five tricks that might help you get what you want from others.Harriet Dempsey-Jones, Postdoctoral Researcher in Cognitive Neurosciences, The University of QueenslandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/684062016-11-08T23:01:38Z2016-11-08T23:01:38ZHow Twitter bots affected the US presidential campaign<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/145093/original/image-20161108-16691-1cbwu36.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Who's behind that Twitter feed?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-403937386/">Robot typing via shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A grand jury led by special counsel Robert Mueller has <a href="https://www.axios.com/mueller-indicts-13-russian-nationals-for-conspiracy-2498f173-ad1a-4609-b233-c40ea0c041dc.html">indicted 13 Russians</a> for, among other things, using social media accounts to influence public debate in the lead-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. My research has found that large numbers of participants in that online conversation were biased robots created by unseen groups with unknown agendas.</p>
<p>Since 2012, I have been studying how people discuss <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0064679">social</a>, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055957">political</a>, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2615569.2615699">ideological</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47880-7_20">policy</a> issues online. In particular, I have looked at how social media are <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2749279.2749283">abused for manipulative purposes</a>.</p>
<p>It turns out that much of the political content Americans see on social media every day is not produced by human users. Rather, about one in every five election-related tweets from Sept. 16 to Oct. 21, 2016, was generated by computer software programs called “<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2818717">social bots</a>.”</p>
<p>These artificial intelligence systems can be <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MC.2016.183">rather simple</a> or <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.00975">very sophisticated</a>, but they share a common trait: They are set to automatically produce content following a specific political agenda determined by their controllers, who are nearly impossible to identify. These bots have <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i11.7090">affected the online discussion</a> around the presidential election, including leading topics and how online activity was perceived by the media and the public.</p>
<h2>How active are they?</h2>
<p>The operators of these systems could be political parties, foreign governments, third-party organizations, or even individuals with vested interests in a particular election outcome. Their work amounts to at least four million election-related tweets during the period we studied, posted by more than 400,000 social bots.</p>
<p>That’s at least 15 percent of all the users discussing election-related issues. It’s more than twice the overall concentration of bots on Twitter – which the <a href="http://qz.com/248063/twitter-admits-that-as-many-as-23-million-of-its-active-users-are-actually-bots/">company estimates</a> at 5 to 8.5 percent of all accounts.</p>
<p>To determine which accounts are bots and which are humans, we use <a href="http://truthy.indiana.edu/botornot/">Bot Or Not</a>, a publicly available bot-detection service that I developed in collaboration with colleagues at Indiana University. Bot Or Not uses <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.00975">advanced machine learning algorithms</a> to analyze multiple cues, including Twitter profile metadata, the content and topics posted by the account under inspection, the structure of its social network, the timeline of activity and much more. After considering more than 1,000 factors, Bot Or Not generates a likelihood score that the account under scrutiny is a bot. Our tool is 95 percent accurate at this determination.</p>
<p>There are many examples of <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5210/fm.v21i11.7090">bot-generated tweets</a>, supporting their candidates, or attacking the opponents. Here is just one:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>@u_edilberto: RT @WeNeedHillary: Polls Are All Over the Place. Keep Calm & Hillary On! https://t.co/XwBFfLjz7x #p2 #ctl #ImWithHer #TNTweeters https://t …</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>How effective are they?</h2>
<p>The effectiveness of social bots depends on the reactions of actual people. We learned, distressingly, that people were not able to ignore, or develop a sort of immunity toward, the bots’ presence and activity. Instead, we found that most human users can’t tell whether a tweet is posted by another real user or by a bot. We know this because bots are being retweeted at the same rate as humans. Retweeting bots’ content without first verifying its accuracy can have real consequences, including spreading <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40493-014-0012-y">rumors</a>, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0118093">conspiracy theories</a> or <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1517441113">misinformation</a>.</p>
<p>Some of these bots are very simple, and just retweet content produced by human supporters. Other bots, however, produce new tweets, jumping in the conversation by using existing popular hashtags (for instance, <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/neverhillary">#NeverHillary</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/nevertrump">#NeverTrump</a>). Real users who follow these Twitter hashtags will be exposed to bot-generated content seamlessly blended with the tweets produced by other actual people.</p>
<p>Bots produce content automatically, and therefore at a very fast and continuous rate. That means they form consistent and pervasive parts of the online discussion throughout the campaign. As a result, they were able to build significant influence, collecting large numbers of followers and having their tweets retweeted by thousands of humans. </p>
<h2>A deeper understanding of bots</h2>
<p>Our investigation into these politically active social bots also uncovered information that can lead us to more nuanced understanding of them. One such lesson was that bots are biased, by design. For example, Trump-supporting bots systematically produced overwhelmingly positive tweets in support of their candidate. <a href="http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM11/paper/viewFile/2850/3274/">Previous studies</a> showed that this systematic bias alters public perception. Specifically, it creates the false impression that there is <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/1963192.1963301">grassroots, positive, sustained support</a> for a certain candidate. </p>
<p>Location provided another lesson. Twitter provides metadata about the physical location of the device used to post a certain tweet. By aggregating and analyzing their digital footprints, we discovered that bots are not uniformly distributed across the United States: They are significantly overrepresented in some states, in particular southern states like Georgia and Mississippi. This suggests that some bot operations may be based in those states.</p>
<p>Also, we discovered that bots can operate in multiple ways: For example, when they are not engaged in producing content supporting their respective candidates, bots can target their opponents. We discovered that bots pollute certain hashtags, like #NeverHillary or #NeverTrump, where they smear the opposing candidate.</p>
<p>These strategies leverage known human biases: for example, the fact that negative content travels faster on social media, as one of <a href="https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj-cs.26">our recent studies</a> demonstrated. We found that, in general, negative tweets are retweeted at a pace 2.5 times higher than positive ones. This, in conjunction with the fact that people are naturally more inclined to retweet content that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/PASSAT/SocialCom.2011.34">aligns with their preexisting political views</a>, results in the spreading of content that is often <a href="http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM11/paper/viewFile/2850/3274/">defamatory or based on unsupported, or even false, claims</a>.</p>
<p>It is hard to quantify the effects of bots on the actual election outcome, but it’s plausible to think that they could affect voter turnout in some places. For example, some people may think there is so much local support for their candidate (or the opponent) that they don’t need to vote – even if what they’re seeing is actually artificial support provided by bots.</p>
<p>Our study hit the limits of what can be done today by using computational methods to fight the issue of bots: Our ability to identify the bot masters is bound by technical constraints on recognizing patterns in their behavior. Social media is acquiring increasing importance in shaping <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aaa1160">political beliefs</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1215842">influencing</a> people’s <a href="http://science.sciencemag.org/content/341/6146/647">online</a> and <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature11421">offline behavior</a>. The research community will need to continue to explore, to make these platforms as safe from abuse as possible.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This is an updated version of an article first published Nov. 8, 2016.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/68406/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emilio Ferrara does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In addition to the meddling alleged in the new Mueller indictments, about one in every five election-related tweets was generated by software, not humans.Emilio Ferrara, Research Assistant Professor of Computer Science, University of Southern CaliforniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/590912016-05-11T07:50:02Z2016-05-11T07:50:02ZThe science behind our bargain hunting foolishness<p>What happens to your brain when you walk into a shop and are faced with a <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#safe=active&tbs=vw:l,mr:1,price:1,ppr_min:9000,cat:404,pdtr0:708936%7C65.0%24&tbm=shop&q=ultra+high+definition+3d+tv+most+expensive">huge, ultra-high definition, 3D television</a> at the startling price of £37,695? Assuming you actually need a new TV, you might dismiss this as ridiculous; laugh at the spendthrift fools who might buy it. And then, very sensibly, you start looking at more reasonably priced options, maybe at around the £1,500 mark. You have just been successfully manipulated. Welcome to the world of anchoring.</p>
<p>The above is precisely what happened to me, and it happens to all of us. Anchoring is a type of <a href="http://mentalfloss.com/article/68705/20-cognitive-biases-affect-your-decisions">cognitive bias</a> where the mere presence of an initial number can have a disproportionate influence on subsequent decision making. The outrageous price of the TV serves as an anchor that nudges customers towards spending more than they want. In other words, the price subconsciously influences your expectations about what you would be willing to pay. Safely back at home, the thought of spending £1,500 on a TV seems once again impossibly extravagant.</p>
<p>This example illustrates three key properties of anchoring. First, and perhaps most importantly: it really works.</p>
<p>Unlike many recent findings in psychology <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/08/psychology-studies-reliability-reproducability-nosek/402466/">that fail to replicate</a>, the anchoring effect is easy to demonstrate and repeat. For instance, in one experiment, <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/index.cfm?fa=search.displayrecord&uid=1997-05723-001">a group of participants was asked</a> whether Mahatma Gandhi was more than 140-years-old when he died. Another group was asked whether he was aged over nine. No one got that question wrong, of course, but when they were asked what age he actually was former group said 67, while the latter said 50. For what it’s worth, Gandhi was 78 when he died. The mere presence of an initial number however ludicrous, changes the perception of what is reasonable.</p>
<h2>Court out</h2>
<p>The effect is not limited to the lab, but shows up robustly in the real world. In the court room, the damages awarded are <a href="http://abovethelaw.com/2015/01/how-anchoring-can-influence-judges-and-other-cognitive-biases/">strongly influenced by anchors</a> and even <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/4499451?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">sentencing can be affected</a>. In salary negotiations, the starting position influences the final outcome, indicating the importance of making that initial offer.</p>
<p>The second key thing to bear in mind: everyone does it. Every time you buy an item “on sale” you experience anchoring. The original price influences your expectations so the 25% discount feels like a real bargain. Similarly, cars don’t cost the sticker price – that’s just there to anchor your expectations so negotiating a lower price makes you feel like you got a good deal. And as we have seen with the TV example, retailers take advantage of anchoring with in-store displays featuring extremely expensive items so that the nearby products look better in comparison. Heck, you will even use it when setting the asking price on your house when it’s time to sell.</p>
<p>Now, occasionally, companies get it wrong. A large retail chain in the US thought it was a smart move to eliminate coupons and instead create “<a href="https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/everyday-low-pricing-may-not-be-best-strategy-supermarkets">everyday low pricing</a>”. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t consider the effect of anchoring and sales quickly dropped. When they reversed their policy, customers started returning. We need that anchor to inform us that we’re getting a bargain.</p>
<p>And that leads on to the final aspect of the phenomenon: no one is immune.</p>
<p>Even when you are aware of cognitive biases, you can still be affected by them and anchoring is a particularly strong bias. Judges are experienced, well-trained, and highly motivated decision makers but even they can still fall prey to <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=257634">systematic biases in their judgments</a>. And despite the fact that I have been teaching psychology for nearly 20 years, you’ve already heard how I fell for it.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121937/original/image-20160510-20746-14x25zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121937/original/image-20160510-20746-14x25zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121937/original/image-20160510-20746-14x25zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121937/original/image-20160510-20746-14x25zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121937/original/image-20160510-20746-14x25zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=421&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121937/original/image-20160510-20746-14x25zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121937/original/image-20160510-20746-14x25zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121937/original/image-20160510-20746-14x25zl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=529&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The source of all your troubles.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/neilconway/3792906411/in/photolist-6MaCW8-64zrPn-9UwYi-4AkYYV-aaaWt8-64zrPt-84cP5K-5SWdgZ-6RwrC-dHP5pM-sq4RNt-wj8x-LPMMQ-5H2bU-NDMUU-aaawos-rx7fD-4683Gw-bCVps-JtSW9-8bFv9f-9XkxiP-a6YB8T-5fbHci-7Dvjs2-5z9F41-dzaRhj-gayZDq-645D1o-6do3r1-jypVk8-61eaPC-wTEZDo-aDNE65-5pUBZM-pRf9pH-5vGNkE-bPewqD-GCePiF-qDbwbV-xbQUur-G9PtQ-9UwYp-8nuU6d-dPuvJT-Y6ff-8JhBkW-qcDjt-cVJN4-8MkSZC">Neil Conway/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Checklist</h2>
<p>So how can you stop getting caught out? The truth is, anchoring is probably impossible to avoid entirely. You can, however, minimise its influence by following some simple steps:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Be aware. Just by knowing what anchoring is and how it can affect your decision making, you limit its effectiveness. Obviously, recognising a nudge is a good start. But it is also worth being aware of your own thought processes. <a href="http://www.rainybrainsunnybrain.com/bbc-horizon/">Some research suggests</a> that people are particularly susceptible to cognitive biases when they are happy, making them less critical in evaluating their environment and their own judgements. Just to be clear, I am not suggesting you deliberately put yourself in a foul mood before going shopping with the family.</p></li>
<li><p>Do your homework. The more information you have about a product and its price range, the less susceptible you are to anchoring. So before making a significant purchase, get as much unbiased information as you can. Consumer advocacy groups like <a href="http://www.which.co.uk">Which?</a> or <a href="http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/index.htm">Consumer Reports</a> provide independent, evidence-based evaluations of products and services as well as a comparison of prices and are probably a good place to start.</p></li>
<li><p>Set limits in advance. If you can decide on price limits before going out, then you are far less likely to go beyond them and make a rash decision. If you know, for instance, that you don’t want to spend more than £15 for a bottle of wine, then you are less likely to pick up the £25 bottle, even though it’s bargain compared to the Château Lafite Rothchild next to it.</p></li>
</ol>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121941/original/image-20160510-20742-1ngzub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121941/original/image-20160510-20742-1ngzub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/121941/original/image-20160510-20742-1ngzub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121941/original/image-20160510-20742-1ngzub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121941/original/image-20160510-20742-1ngzub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=360&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121941/original/image-20160510-20742-1ngzub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121941/original/image-20160510-20742-1ngzub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/121941/original/image-20160510-20742-1ngzub3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=452&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Blurred vision?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/megs_pics/5132400387/in/photolist-8PzRR7-8PwFRn-8PwH7r-a252ps-a251Z1-8PzZ5j-8Px9SH-8Px4hH-8PzYfN-8PzWRS-8PAemN-8PwHwt-8PwSC8-8PwTPR-8PzTHE-8PwNtD-8PwGuz-8PAda3-8PzU9W-8Pxa9z-8PA62f-8PA36C-8PAdQW-8Px21c-8PA4pY-8PwL34-8mwvU9-8PA7s5-8PzVUC-8PzWnd-8PwXGe-8PA89J-8PwZjH-8PwLF4-8PwFkg-a229UZ-nXEuYv-8PwUZn-8msNRn-8PA2uy-8PA2i1-a252CJ-a252ws-xTEX6-x8cAHg-6J6Jfi-8PzX4C-a25293-ijw3Bp-a4gdWz">Megan Cole/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Ultimately cognitive biases like anchoring are fundamental to human decision making and we’re stuck with them. In truth, we probably wouldn’t want to reject them entirely because most of the time they provide rapid shortcuts that work well and save us a ton of mental effort. The flip side is that we are mostly unaware of it happening and if we’re not careful, a clever bit of anchoring can see us merrily walking out of the shopping centre clutching a futuristic TV, thinking we’ve just bagged an incredible bargain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/59091/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Devlin is a director of Applied Consumer Neuroscience Labs. </span></em></p>You’re no mug right? Think again. We all get fooled by anchoring, and probably use it ourselves as well.Joseph Devlin, Reader in Cognitive Neuroscience, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.