The Iron Yuppie

I heard about a fascinating study about our natural partisanship which extended an older study I had read about as an undergraduate. In the older study, where both sides of an issue are presented, people very strongly tend to think their side presented more accurate and compelling data. Of course this is not too surprising, given a person is likely to agree with those that confirm their internal thoughts. What makes it even more interesting is that when both sides are presented, one would think this would draw a person closer to the middle. I would have thought that seeing the other side would lead a person to understand the other side is presenting a rational point of view and this would lead to a more moderate position. This is exactly the opposite of what happens! Hearing both sides tends to reinforce the position someone already has and leads her to believe more strongly in their position.

The study covered on NPR further extends this to cable networks, where “neutral” points are presented and then the details of the study are filled in by each of the sides. However, the authors of the study were able to show that it was nearly totally irrelevant whether or not the data was present and/or how strong the data was. Instead, what you thought before or what you would feel if a particular outcome was to be the case dictated how you would feel about the incident and the data.

Needless to say, our current cable news format merely exacerbates this natural flaw in our thinking. One may say that ratings drive this… I suppose people generally enjoy hearing people yell back and forth more than anything. But even worse, the blogsphere, which is supposed to be journalism by and for the people, does not even bother with presenting the other side. It is up to the individual to seek out the other side (though I suppose it would not matter even if that individual chose to since the study says it’s unlikely that it would convince a person of the other person’s point of view). Instead, we get this vicious circle of people continuing to feed each other’s core beliefs and simply reinforcing what they already believe without even the appearance of impartiality.

My question ultimately comes down to how can we get out of this endless loop. I have dreamt that there would be some kind of actually balanced program wherein the reporter would present a set of facts and the partisans would be forced to, in some kind of cruel and unusual exercise, defend the other side’s position immediately after making her own point. However, I am not sure how this gets around the natural human behavior to believe what supports your own position and discards the opposing side’s facts. Thoughts are welcome.

posted by Iron Yuppie  # 11/25/2004 11:24:00 AM