Understanding and countering misperceptions in politics and health care

Misperceptions about politics and health can undermine public debate and distort people’s choices and behavior. Why do people hold these false or unsupported beliefs and why is it so difficult to change their minds? An emerging literature examines the difficulty of correcting false or unsupported beliefs and the reasons for this resistance, but relatively little is known about the sources of misperceptions, the psychology of misperception belief, or how to most effectively counter these false claims. In addition, most studies focus on the mass public’s beliefs in well-known misperceptions; the mechanisms by which false beliefs become politicized, disseminated, and integrated into individual belief systems and the role of elites and the media in that process are less well understood. ∗White paper prepared for the University of Michigan conference on “How We Can Improve Health Science Communication,” June 17–18, 2016. c © Brendan Nyhan. Scholars have long feared public ignorance about politics and health, but misperceptions may be an even greater concern, undermining public debate and distorting people’s choices and behavior. Why do people hold these false or unsupported beliefs and why is it so difficult to change their minds? An emerging literature examines the difficulty of correcting false or unsupported beliefs and the reasons for this resistance, but relatively little is known about the sources of misperceptions, the psychology of misperception belief, or how to most effectively counter them. Moreover, most studies focus on well-known misperceptions; the process by which false beliefs become politicized, disseminated, and integrated into individual belief systems is less well understood. In particular, elites and the media seem to play a critical role in this process, but receive relatively little scholarly attention. The psychology of misperceptions Belief in misperceptions is widespread (e.g., Ramsay et al. 2010) and plays an important role in political and policy debates on issues ranging from the economy (e.g., Bartels 2002) to foreign policy (e.g., Kull, Ramsay, and Lewis 2003). For instance, Nyhan (2010) traces the rise of the “death panel” myth and its influence on the debate over the Affordable Care Act (ACA). This myth, which continues to persist (Nyhan 2014), warped the debate over end-of-life care, delaying Medicare coverage of voluntary consultations with doctors for years (Pear 2015). Beliefs about controversial health issues have been similarly distorted by misinformation. One of the most destructive health myths is the false claim that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine causes autism, which has influenced perceptions of vaccines for years despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary (Willingham and Helft 2014). The causes of misperception belief Despite the importance of misperceptions, we know relatively little about how or why people acquire these beliefs or hold on to them so tenaciously (Lewandowsky et al. 2012; Nyhan and Reifler 2012). Research suggests some of these beliefs are the byproduct of the vulnerabilities of human psychology (Marsh, Cantor, and Brashier 2016). For instance, we instinctively process and accept information to which we are exposed and have to actively resist believing such information when it is false (Gilbert, Tafarodi, and Malone 1993). Similarly, we tend to believe that information is familiar is likely to be true, which may lead us astray if false claims are widespread or if attempts to correct them have made the myths salient (Schwarz et al. 2007). In other cases, people trying to make sense of the world may form false beliefs by making incorrect inferences from available information (Prasad et al. 2009; Thorson 2015b). Motivated reasoning — the tendency to interpret information in a manner that is consistent with our predispositions (e.g., Kunda 1990; Lodge and Taber 2013a) — seems to be an especially important factor in the prevalence and persistence of misperceptions about controversial issues. For example, belief in political misperceptions is closely associated with partisanship and ideology on many salient issues (Ramsay et al. 2010; Nyhan and Reifler