You can't afford the luxury of a negative thought

[joshwriting]

siderea has a habit of posting thought-provoking notions and articles. Recently, she posted a snippet from http://psychotherapynetworker.com/index.php?category=magazine&sub_cat=articles&type=articles&id=The%20Politics%20of%20Negativity%20and%20Fear
on the role negative advertising plays and how negative impressions, once formed, are harder to eliminate than positives are.

This is not exactly new, conceptually. The aphorisms about people's reputations abound. Tearing down has always been easier than building up. A snippet from the article:

The most recent study on the effects of negative opinions appears in the August issue of Political Psychology. It shows that you can create negative attitudes so subtly that people dont even realize theyve been manipulated, and that once the attitude is established, it seems to inoculate the person against changing his or her mind. In a series of experiments, psychologists George Bizer and Richard Petty presented people with fake newspaper articles about two opposing candidates. Once participants indicated their preferences, the researchers asked half of each candidates supporters to rate how strongly they supported their candidate, and asked the other half to rate how strongly they opposed the other candidate, thus leading half the subjects to conceptualize their support negatively. Then Bizer and Petty gave everyone the second half of the articles, which presented damning facts about their preferred candidate.

Overwhelmingly, people whose attitudes had been negatively framed adhered to their support for their candidate much more than did the people whose attitudes had been positively framed. Thus negative framing seems to enhance a voters loyalty to his or her preferred candidate.

I was initially struck by this in the context in which it was written. The political implications were harsh and scary.

But while that still fascinates me, I am more moved yet by the following to implications:

Teachings of prejudice, whether structured or accidental, seem much the same to me. There are lasting images of stereotypes that are nigh unto impossible to shake. Ethnic humor is expressly included in that.

As important is our self-image. How easily to we absorb that negative self-image and how difficult is it, then to shake that off?

I find myself wondering what happens (or would happen, I suppose) if the people being poked at were told a) before; b) during; and/or c) after the experiment about this effect on their thoughts. Could they then successfully get past the negative to either a place of balanced neutrality or positive view?

To me, this all ties back to both the issue of "PC" vs. sensitivity and the issue of how we raise and teach children.

Comments

[dpolicar]

> I find myself wondering what happens (or would happen, I suppose) if the people being poked at were told a) before; b) during; and/or c) after the experiment about this effect on their thoughts. Could they then successfully get past the negative to either a place of balanced neutrality or positive view?

(nodnod)
I think about this a lot. In my own experience I've found it possible to:
a) observe my own negative/positive biases about various groups (and I have plenty!)
b) file alerts in my mind that lead to reactions like "Hm... I find so-and-so has (trait), but I also note that so-and-so is an X, and I've noted in the past that I tend to read Xes as more (trait) than they actually are, so I'll assume a fair portion of that is my own bias."

Sometimes with the bonus result that the bias itself fades over time, since I'm not constantly reinforcing it with bogus "examples." (Sometimes not, though... there are biases of this sort I've carried around since my teens and simply have to keep compensating for.)

So insofar as knowing things like this helps with step a, I'd say that yes, it's possible. (But slow, and takes work.)

[mythlawen.livejournal.com]

Thank you for posting that.

I've been trying to guard my thought from the negative views and at the same time, observing how easily people establish them in my new community (and this is one advertizes its open and loving atmosphere). I find they do well when thinking directly about it, but don't often catch themselves at other times. I know I'm guilty of the same approach, try as I might to control it, but the best thing we can do about it is to watch what crosses our minds as much as we can, right?

[zilsrainydayz.livejournal.com]

thanks for posting that, I have briefly noticed stuff along those lines...though not quite as clearly, I think.

And yes, I think it would greatly change the view if the people were exposed to it at different times.