It Is Not Surprising People Are Gullible; Hence Politics

There seems to be some astonishing recognition and amazement expressed by many in the news media and by many in the population about how many people are accepting the claims that the 2020 Presidential election was stolen via numerous methods. Why news professionals or even the general public should be surprised that such claims are believed is even more surprising to me. On what basis do they expect that people are not gullible, are not easily lead and deceived, or are predisposed to sound and reasonable judgement on the facts related to an issue?

Consider the ‘common wisdom’ of our culture and history that would inform and instruct us against such naïve notions. Consider the science of human behavior regarding how individuals, groups and communities deal with information and facts, not to mention they deal with scientific information itself. Consider what the news media and journalists themselves present and discuss on many issues and events that they themselves challenge individuals, groups and political parties on that does not conform to the facts, data or knowledge which is rejected or denied by those segments of the public. There is plenty of evidence that tells us that it is not just unlikely but that it is very typical for some people to be deceived, gullible or self-deluded about a topic.

I remember learning what some easily recognizable American figures have advised the public to be aware of as ‘informed’ citizens, consumers or just individuals. Abraham Lincoln provided a classic adage that applies not just to politics but to every aspect of our lives. When Lincoln said: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, all of the people some of the time; but you can’t fool all the people all of the time”, he was instructing the public that politicians (and others) will try to deceive you for their purposes. This has not changed since Lincoln said it. It was true before Lincoln, after Lincoln, is true now, and will continue to be true in the future. A consequence of this is that there will be people in the population who will believe what they are told is true, even when it is not.

P. T. Barnum also provided sage instruction to our society. He is noted for saying: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” This advice is not all that different from Lincoln’s in that it warns each of us that you can be fooled. A reasonable parsing of his adage is that anyone can be fooled [is a sucker] if you recognize that the ‘every minute’ conditions was how often a person was born, thus everyone. He based his assessment on his own success in his business enterprises, which while entertainment, remains valid and applicable to any other area of life, especially politics.

H. L. Mencken over half a century after Lincoln provided yet another insight into how human nature and their ability to be deceived, to be gullible, applies in throughout our society at that time. His advice was perhaps more a commentary on business in America but at it’s root it informs us about what once should expect of some part of a population. There is plenty of evidence since Mencken’s observation that suggest he was correct regarding what once can rely upon from some among us. Mencken noted that “No one has ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the people.” This is just a reframing of Lincoln’s, Barnum’s and many others who have stated that people can and are fooled routinely. It’s just as true today as a century ago, perhaps even more so with the advent of the internet, e-commerce and social-media.

These three historic figures are hardly alone or even in a small and select group when it comes to assessing the vulnerability of people to be deceived, fooled, conned, deluded, and exploited by others based upon what people are willing or choosing to believe. There would not be the extent of scams and conspiracy theories pervading the nation or the world if the vulnerability to people being fooled were not as easy as it turns out to be.

If you don’t have much confidence in the views of past individuals, perhaps you might be amenable to the information and data that science provides. There has been ample evidence gather by STEM-oriented research that demonstrates that people can and are deceived on almost any topic or issue. Self-deception is studied by psychologists, economists, artificial intelligence & computer science researchers, marketing experts, lobbyists, political advocacy entities, and of course politicians & political entities. Knowing how individuals and groups can be ‘influenced’ is a valuable knowledge-set and service/product offering. Even if you don’t believe that many of these areas validate that there are ways to deceive people, especially particular groups in a population then you haven’t noticed how many different ‘information’ sources and programs there are today that focus on particular views. These entities don’t engage in their activities for purely selfless reasons. They are engaged because there is money to be made for those that they can ‘win over’ to the ‘context’ of the information they provide.

STEM has shown and uses what has been learned about human behavior to target their messages to their revenue sources. Just the phenomena that people are prone to interpreting information to conform to their views/beliefs is a scientific explanation for Lincoln’s, Barnum’s and Mencken’s observations. People are subject to their own ‘confirmation-bias’ when seeing, hearing or discussing the same information. When different people interpret the same information in a manner where both or multiple ‘interpretations’ cannot be right, true, valid or provable then there’s plenty of research that demonstrates that self-selection of information is occurring, that the information is being distorted by views of the individuals not of the reality of the information.

Now while there is no guarantee that any one, any group or segment of the population is right; because every one or every group could be wrong. Logically, if there are at least two differing interpretations of the information then one of them is closer to the truth than the other. Since the same information is used by both groups the difference has to come from how the individuals interpreted and used that information. If each individual had a different interpretation one could conclude that there is just to much variation in how that information was used. However if you have for example two major interpretations emerge from the same data than there has to be an underlying process that is driving and determining this ‘group-think’ consensus. One of those principles is ‘confirmation bias’. People are choosing what to believe and adjust their understanding of the data, the information and of reality to conform to that belief. This is one of the factors that creates the ability for people to be gullible, to be deceived. This is the factor that is used to manipulate people and groups.

Add to the ‘confirmation bias’, the principle of ‘belonging’ and you have another factor that causes people to ‘want to believe’ in something despite facts, truth or reality. Human being want to belong to groups, to be a member in good standing in their community(ies). They are happy to ‘go along’ to ‘get along’. Is this self-delusion, self-deception or being gullible? Yes, it is. You don’t have to do it consciously and with an intended objective. You just have to be subject to it’s influence over how you process and understand information. You aren’t necessarily doing it knowingly, though some may be for other reasons; but not knowing or being aware of how you are understanding the facts doesn’t mean you are not subject to the distortions and errors that they produce for you.

The whole purpose of this assessment on how people are deceived, gullible, and used by others was to point out that the news media and journalists who are ‘surprised’ by there being groups or portions of a population in denial about an issue just seems to be just another example of self-delusion. Do they really not know and understand that this happens all the time and on many, many issues?

Perhaps, journalists should wonder if they are doing their jobs sufficiently to confront this issue. There are things that they could do to help deal with this problem, and it is a problem. How does one defend our democracy if Jefferson was correct; that a free society depends upon its citizenry’s knowledge in that “whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government." If the people are to be ‘well-informed’ then self-delusion and gullibility would seem to be a corrosive force acting against defense of democracy.