The Psychological Bias That Is Destroying America (Podcast)

Motivated reasoning distorts our judgment, both as individuals and a society. But there are three simple rules for overcoming it.

There’s increasing concern that we’re living in a post-truth era. Debates over scientific questions, e.g., the efficacy of COVID vaccines, devolve into partisan mudslinging; the result is that Republicans are around 8 times more likely to decline a vaccine. Politics and media are increasingly driven by the most inflammatory content, truth be damned, with a shocking number of false (and uncorrected) allegations made by media publications on both the right and the left. And millions of American believe a conspiracy theory that our country is controlled by Satanist, cannibalistic pedophiles.

That’s why it should come as no surprise that animal rights advocates — people who are doing their best to reduce cruelty and violence — are accused of violence and criminality. This week’s podcast guest, Amy Meyer, knows this as well as anyone, as the first person charged under Utah’s so-called “ag gag” law, which made it a crime to photograph abuse at a slaughterhouse or factory farm. For merely taking photographs from a public street, she faced criminal charges. But by fighting back against the distorted allegations against her, she won.

Listen to my conversation with Amy, and fellow Utah activist Jeremy Beckham, here.

I have written extensively about how the distortions and falsehoods told about animal rights activists, in an effort to cover-up animal cruelty, are a danger to everyone. By using propaganda to persecute animal rights activists, the industry is threatening our most basic civil liberties.

I have written less, however, about why the industry says the things it says. For example, Smithfield has publicly accused me, and my co-defendants in the upcoming Utah trial, of fabricating evidence of animal cruelty, including planting scenes involving afterbirth, feces, and decomposing animals. As journalist Glenn Greenwald has written:

How would these activists stage hundreds of pigs in gestation crates and dozens of piglets rotting to death — all in virtual reality, no less? It would take a Hollywood blockbuster budget and the most sophisticated team of computer-generated imagery for that. What’s Smithfield’s theory about what they fabricated in this video?

Strangely, however, I don’t think the industry is lying. They are speaking what they believe to be truth. The problem is not intentional deception but what psychologists call motivated reasoning. The industry starts with a conclusion, based on some pre-existing bias, e.g., that animal rights activists are dangerous and bad. Then they seek out evidence to prove their biased conclusion. Their reasoning is not based on facts, but based on their initial motivation. And so they conclude that, no matter what animal rights activists do — even if it’s just taking a sick baby pig to the vet — that it must be dangerous or bad.

What should concern us, however, is that motivated reasoning is not just limited to corrupt industries. It afflicts us all. For example, one study found that factual information about new technologies, such as carbon nanotubes or genetically modified foods, had zero impact on a person’s views. Other research finds that presenting evidence of climate change’s impacts could actually backfire, based on a person’s prior beliefs, and make people even more skeptical of efforts to reduce greenhouse gases. This is a problem not just for those who believe in truth for its own sake. It’s a problem for anyone who cares about the progress or survival of human civilization. If we cannot see the world the way it actually is, rather than the way we want it to be, we can’t deal with the serious threats facing our society.

The good thing is that there are some simple ways for us to overcome motivated reasoning.

The first tip is to avoid “Us v. Them” thinking. Motivated reasoning thrives when tribal loyalty is at issue, as human beings are highly resistant to beliefs that undermine their group’s status. You can see this most obviously in events such as sporting contests. Bulls fans, when I was growing up, found it virtually impossible to see Michael Jordan’s flaws, even when he had obviously committed a foul. Remember the Byron Russell pushoff?

While tribal loyalty may be innocent in the context of a sporting event, however, it becomes dangerous when addressing questions of cruelty and violence. Factory farm supporters, for example, can deny the very facts in front of their eyes — rotting baby animals in cages — because they are “against animal rights advocates.”

We can avoid this tendency by: (a) identifying situations where the information we are trying to understand is part of an Us v. Them conflict, and (b) taking ourselves out of the Us v. Them conflict before forming an opinion. For example, in assessing Michael Jordan’s pushoff, we could start by saying , “Many people, including Jordan’s supporters, think that he might have committed a foul. What do you think?” That avoids the sense of betrayal someone might feel, from making a factual conclusion that’s against their own tribe’s interests.

The second tip is to elevate compromise rather than conflict. An interesting social experiment is unfolding in Taiwan. While Facebook and other social media platforms in the United States have traditionally elevated the most outrageous and angry posts — and especially those that show conflict in the community — Taiwan’s Ministry of Digital Affairs has done the opposite: they’ve tried to build social media systems that elevate unexpected agreement rather than conflict. While the results of that experiment are yet to be fully seen, Taiwan has seen extraordinary success in resolving contentious problems — such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The nation’s unusual elevation of compromise may be one of the reasons for this, as its citizens are able to focus on the facts of a situation, rather than processing those facts through distorting emotional filters.

The final tip is to cultivate curiosity. Curious people don’t find new information threatening; they find it interesting. This allows them to avoid the distortions caused by motivated reasoning. The scholar Dan Kahan explains why:

“We observed this kind of strange thing about these people who are high in science curiosity,” he says. The more scientifically curious a person, the less likely she was to show partisan bias in answering questions. “They seem to be moving in lockstep rather than polarizing as they became more science-curious.”

—

Science-curious Democrats were 44 percent more likely to read an article skeptical of global warming if it had a “surprising” headline. Science-curious Republicans were 20 percent more likely to choose an article supportive of global warming science if the information was supposedly “surprising.”

This suggests that what really drives these science-curious types is a desire to learn something surprising and new — not just to stick to information that affirms what they already believe.

How do we cultivate curiosity? The UC Berkeley Better Good Center has some tips, but they mostly fall under a single category: learning to enjoy novelty by experiencing more of it. New people, places, or ideas trigger anxiety or even fear in most of us, leading to a bias towards the status quo. Those who are able to overcome this fear, however, by exposing themselves to new things, become less susceptible to motivated reasoning. Seeking diverse experiences in life, then, doesn’t just make us more knowledgeable; it inoculates our thinking from distortion.

—

This is my last week in the Bay Area, and there’s a lot unfolding in the next week.

• We’re organizing a day of action — online or in person — for next Monday, Sept 27, one week before my trial is to begin. We’ll be asking folks to post to social media that rescue is not a crime. Look out for an email from both DxE, if you are on their mailing list, and also an email with some instructions and memes for what you can do to support!

• My last Friday Night Hangout before trial is happening at the end of the week, and I’ll be coming back to a subject I lectured about many years ago: the power of unearned suffering. Last week, I shared why I’m willing to go to prison to defend animals — the night terrors that have afflicted me for decades. This week, I’ll be sharing why imprisonment, and other forms of unearned suffering, are crucial to social change. I’ll be telling some stories from social movement history, and also sharing some of the academic research. Here’s the event page.

• Finally, I’ll be talking at this week’s DxE meetup on Saturday, with my co-defendant Paul, about how we’re feeling as we head to trial. The theme is DxE v. Smithfield. And I hope you can make it there.

That’s all for today. Thanks for reading!