<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:#0b5394"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 4:56 PM, BillK <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pharos@gmail.com" target="_blank">pharos@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div class="">On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 10:43 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote:<br>
> Au contraire - there is an entire and enormous field of psychology devoted<br>
> to attitude change and creation. In economic psychology there is marketing.<br>
> Thousands of studies - change and creation occur constantly. One tip: do<br>
> not present an argument far different from the people whose attitudes you<br>
> are trying to change. Just try to move them a little way or you will get<br>
> the stubbornness indicated by billk. But sometimes huge changes, like from<br>
> religious to atheist or the reverse happen. Just a little thing like<br>
> whether the pro argument is first or after the con argument matters. Dozens<br>
> of variables matter aside from the strength of a person' belief. bill w<br>
><br>
<br>
</div>Well, yes, but......<br>
I wasn't referring to opinion manipulation, adverts, etc.<br>
<br>
I was referring to confirmation bias.<br>
<<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias</a>><br>
Confirmation bias (also called confirmatory bias or myside bias) is<br>
the tendency of people to favor information that confirms their<br>
beliefs or hypotheses. The effect is stronger for emotionally charged<br>
issues and for deeply entrenched beliefs.<br>
<br>
People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their<br>
existing position. Biased search, interpretation and memory have been<br>
invoked to explain attitude polarization (when a disagreement becomes<br>
more extreme even though the different parties are exposed to the same<br>
evidence), belief perseverance (when beliefs persist after the<br>
evidence for them is shown to be false), the irrational primacy effect<br>
(a greater reliance on information encountered early in a series) and<br>
illusory correlation (when people falsely perceive an association<br>
between two events or situations).<br>
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BillK<br></div></div></blockquote><div><br><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(11,83,148);display:inline">All of which is correct, except that there are exceptions to the primacy effect you mention. My dissertation showed that in certain circumstances ( I used prosecution and defense arguments in a tort trial and counterbalanced them) the more recent arguments are stronger, and it is not a memory effect.<br>
<br>The biggest problem that I see is the selective attention to information - a product of the confirmatory bias</div> <div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(11,83,148);display:inline">
among other things. It's a sort of xenophobia: do not go to other churches, much less other religions, don't read evidence of climate change if you are a denier, etc. We get in our little cliques and only favor those like us - ingroup-outgroup effect, perhaps the most powerful effect there is.<br>
<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(11,83,148);display:inline">Thinking outside the box is pretty rare. Only contrarians like me find it easy.<br></div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:comic sans ms,sans-serif;font-size:small;color:rgb(11,83,148);display:inline"><br>wfw<br></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">
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