I only have one book left from all my years of college, the rest I readily sold back at the end of any given semester or threw away. The one I kept was called Influence, and it is as relevant today as it was when I was in college in the nineties. I reread it last year and was amazed that the ideas that governments and advertisers have used for decades, probably centuries, are the same manipulations that Facebook and Twitter use today to get you to keep coming back. There really is nothing new under the sun. I may write more on this, but, for today I want to look at how treatment of POWs during the Korean War is a window into how we think today. It really will make sense.
During the Korean War, American prisoners were treated very differently under the North Koreans versus the Chinese Communist. While North Koreans used brutality, the Communist used much simpler forms of influence to achieve compliance from prisoners. For example, The Chinese would get Americans to make brief statements that seemed very mild, such as, “The United States is not perfect.” Then, later on the American would be asked to write a list of why America was not perfect, still nothing too bad. Next, they might be asked to read that list aloud, and then finally, read it aloud to other prisoners. Eventually, the Americans who did complied to these request would be defending their Communist captors by saying things such as “Communism was the best form of government for Asia,” or “America could be improved by following the Communist lead on education.”
So, how does this apply to people commenting on social media. Well, one of the things the Chinese found was that once someone put a statement in writing, they would not go against this statement. Studies found that years later, many American prisoners would still defend some of the practices of Communist China and even their imprisonment. Another important detail the Chinese discovered was that for this to really work, the statements could not be forced. If they told a prisoner to write that “Communism is great” or else we will beat you, then it would not mean anything. The prisoner could just say he wrote that so they would not beat him. There is more, though. It also wouldn’t work if they offered some great reward for writing this statement. If the Chinese offered to set a prisoner free if he would write what they wanted, then again, the prisoner would just say he wrote it for this great reward. But, if they offered some small reward, such as a few cigarettes and the prisoner complied, they had him. No one would say they thought Communism was great just because they got a few smokes, so they ended up defending what they had written and once they defended it publicly in writing, they almost never went back on it.
Now apply this to social media today. Once you have written a statement, or replied to a post you agreed with, human psychology says you are not changing your mind on the subject. Now unless your famous or have thousands of followers, not many people are reading your comments, but, most probably people close to you are seeing them. Here again, this is not new to the internet. Stanford studies as far back as the 1970s have shown have that even if someone is proven wrong, if they have publicly stated their beliefs, they will not change them. In essence, facts don’t matter once you have gone public.
Now, this is not a post about anti-vaxxers or climate change. It is more about the idea that as humans when we make statements publicly, that are not coerced and can only be described as our beliefs, we are going to be sold on those ideas. Think about watching a documentary on a subject you had never given much though to. You might think as you start to watch it that you may lean one way on the topic, but, during the documentary, you start to believe differently based on the facts they have told you. No biggie, you had never stated your thoughts and now you think differently. Now imagine you are watching a show that completely goes against a strong belief you have, say Global Warming. If everyone knows how you feel about this subject, you will simply deny and fight anything that is said. You have publicly stated your beliefs and they are not changing.
Here on Publish0x, most comments are in statement of a belief, but, would not be anything we would regret 20 years from now. But, a lot of social norms will change in the next two decades, so who knows. I would just say to think about how prepared we are to fall on the sword to defend our public comments on social media, because if you think you are open minded, decades of psychology studies are saying we probably aren’t.
(If you read the part about a documentary on Global Warming and in your head immediately jumped to a defensive mode, please note I did not state any thoughts on Global Warming one way or the other, but, that you are ingrained to believe what you already thought and were prepared to defend it.)
Influence -Science and Practice. Robert C Cialdini. 1993, Harper Collins.
