Great article on a study about why Americans believe lies

[Cocoa]

even after they're retracted.

People Believe a 'Fact'
That Fits Their Views
Even if It's Clearly False

http://online.wsj.com/public/article/0,,SB110746526775045356,00.html?mod=todays_free_feature

<snip>

Yet retracting a report isn't the same as erasing it from people's memories. According to an international study to be published next month, Americans tend to believe that the last two events occurred -- even when they recall the retraction or correction. In contrast, Germans and Australians who recall the retraction discount the misinformation. It isn't that Germans and Australians are smarter. Instead, it's further evidence that what we remember depends on what we believe.

<snip>

People who were not suspicious of the motives behind the war continued to rely on misinformation," Prof. Lewandowsky said, "believing in things they know to have been retracted." They held fast to what they had originally heard "because it fits with their mental model," which people seek to retain "whatever it takes."

In contrast, those who were suspicious of the WMD justification
believed the retractions. The reason is probably that they weren't sold on the original, erroneous reports -- all of which cast the U.S. in a good light and Iraqi forces in a bad one. These people "are more willing to discard elements of a mental model that turn out to be wrong," says Prof. Lewandowsky.

The news media would do well to keep in mind that once we report something, some people will always believe it even if we try to stuff the genie back in the bottle. For instance, six months after the invasion, one-third of Americans believed WMDs had been found, even though every such tentative claim was discomfirmed. The findings also offer Machiavellian possibilities for politicians. They can make a false claim that helps their cause, contritely retract it -- and rest assured that some people will nevertheless keep thinking of it as true.

[Canuckistanian]

1. You can fool some of the people all the time....

But this administration has raised it to an art form....

[aden_nak]

2. "A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest."

-Simon and Garfunkel

[vpigrad]

3. I don't think it has to do with the way *we* think.

It has to do with the way the Bushie-controlled media presents information. They'll put a lie on the front page then put the truth at the bottom of page 10 the next day. It's not that people don't care. It's that they never know there's a retraction in the first place.

[sandnsea]

4. Plus the spin

When Rush, O'Reilly, et al, say that the truth is liberal lies, that doesn't help either.

[Cocoa]

6. that's true in a lot of cases

I only found out recently that the story about the Clinton people trashing the White House was bogus. If the whores that reported that lie ever retracted it, they really buried it.

[ucmike]

5. lack of critical thinking in america

our schools don't teach it, and the mass media doesn't provoke it.

we are taught simply and learn to think that way.

[Nite Owl]

7. It's a matter of brainwashing

and the fundie followers of theirs are truly brainwashed. They want to believe the news that is favorable towards the administration. The right knows that too and takes advantage of this at every turn. When it comes out that the vote last Sunday didn't go so well and turnout was no where near what they said it was they will still be saying 'but they said', 'not what I heard'. They are being played. The truth is meaningless when it doesn't fit into the mindframe.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

8. Brainwashing in a total information environment seems

like a good explanation for the Red State mentality.

I recently wrote comments on a blog article, and the response came from a right-winger who not only didn't answer my points but began writing down the content of a tape that was recorded in his head, stringing a bunch of Limbaugh-esque talking points together.

Here's his tirade:

"Democrats go to Baghdad on the eve of war, vouch for the honesty of a tyrant like Saddam Hussein, and call the President of the United States a liar. They make up stories of an impending military draft and use it as campaign rhetoric. They join themselves to a paranoid fabulist and monger of conspiracy theories like Michael Moore and invite him to be an honored guest at their party's national convention. They find any public mention of religion (by a Republican, that is) offensive, but defend almost any outlandish behavior of sexual perverts. When they invariably lose national elections, they agree with anti-American foreigners that Americans are "stupid." They blame the U.S. for every single problem that exists in the world and find nothing at all honorable in our history or in anything in which we are presently engaged. The few who even go so far as to say, "I love my country," quickly follow with, "BUT..." And -- perhaps most damaging of all -- they propagate offensive, completely insane crap like you just did about the president being a Nazi and our country drifting toward fascism and/or theocracy. Yes, things are quite different now, because the Democratic Party has been taken over by the stark raving insane far-left extremists. God help us all."

Obviously, this guy has been watching too much Fox, listening to too much Limbaugh, and reading the Wall Street Journal editorial page and getting too little truth.

Just for one thing, the president of the United States is a liar.

[wildflower]

9. I think two things are in operation here.

1) For committed Republicans, it's the concept "When you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail." Seen in many areas, including academic research. You tend to want the data to fit your hypothesis.

2) For undecideds, it's basic marketing concepts:

Create a need and fill it
Simplicity
Repetition
Specificity (using examples to back up claim)
Trigger words (e.g. what Luntz does in the focus groups)

[KoKo]

10. Media veiwers got nothing but misinformation but non-media viewers....

those who read magazines other than Time and Newsweek and Internet News Hounds were skeptical from the beginning.

So this study really doesn't address the Media Control issue. It's another red herring to keep us all ducking the fact that the "Fairness Doctrine" is gone and the "myth of the Liberal Media" is perpetuated once again. :-(

[EC]

11. Good study...

And they are the party with principles...


One Republican I know (female) whenever I question her on the principles and moral of her party, all she can say (over and over) is well look at Clinton...I really think she wants to believe that she is right so much that she really thinks a BJ is worse than lies that lead to death....It is what you want to believe, facts do not matter, forget trying to talk to them, forget trying to make them see the light, forget trying to convert them, it'll only happen when their admiration wears off (it always does, look at your own heros from childhood, do you still admire them?)that's all we can do...

The only ones worth our time to get to vote would be the non-voters, we have to get them to realize there is a difference (and offer a difference, middle of the road, means Republican lite)and get them motivated.