I read something today that provided an interesting insight into what's happened in the Presidential race this past two weeks. I'm reading Robert Cialdini's classic book "Influence: Science and Practice." In this book, Cialdini describes many unconscious cognitive "shortcuts" that influence the information we pay attention to and the decisions we make, and how marketers and others seeking to influence us make use of these shortcuts.
The chapter on "Commitment and Consistency" struck me as potentially explaining both why conservative voters have stuck with McCain for so long, and why his actions over the past two weeks seem to have turned the tide against him.
Does this make sense?
Many of us here at DailyKos have asked the question "How can they believe this garbage? Didn't they notice that this statement completely contradicts the statement he made a a month ago?" Here's some insight into what's going on:
Since it is so typically in our best interests to be consistent, we fall into the habit of being automatically consistent even in situations where it is not the sensible way to be. When it occurs unthinkingly, consistency can be disastrous. Nonetheless, even blind consistency has its attractions.
First, like most other forms of automatic responding, it offers a short cut through the complexities of modern life. Once we have made up our minds about issues, stubborn consistency allows us a very appealing luxury: We don't have to think hard about the issues anymore. We don't really have to sift through the blizzard of information we encounter every day to identify relevant facts; we don't have to expend the mental energy to weigh the pros and cons; we don't have to make any further tough decisions. Instead, all we have to do when confronted with the issues is click on our consistency tape, whirr, and we know just what to believe, say, or do. We need only believe, say, or do whatever is consistent with our earlier decision.
The allure of such a luxury is not to be minimized. It allows us a convenient, relatively effortless, and efficient method for dealing with the complexities of daily life that make severe demands on our mental energies and capacities. It is not hard to understand, then, why automatic consistency is a difficult reaction to curb. It offers us a way to evade the rigors of continuing thought.
We are constantly bombarded by an effectively infinite amount of information, most of it irrelevant to our lives. We only perceive and attend to a tiny fraction of that information; nonconscious processes in our brains use past experience as a filter to select which bits of information are likely to be important to us. Committed conservative Republicans, just like committed progressive Democrats (and everyone else for that matter), have filters tied to our world views. We get through the day by preferentially noticing information that fits with our expectations and not even noticing the existence of information that doesn't. At least, not until and unless that information hits us over the head.
The McCain of a few years ago was a good guy, appearing to be honorable, principled, steady in his beliefs. Most of us didn't agree with him, but we did respect him. Conservative Republicans didn't like him so much, but once he was the Republican nominee, he became connected in their minds with their long-established Republican world view and mental patterns. The consistency effect would then lead them to only notice/believe news and analyses that supported their views, and to not notice/disregard news and analyses that countered their views. We do exactly the same thing over on this side - it's a fundamental aspect of how human brains work.
So what happens if your candidate does more and more things that contradict your expectations and your views? At first you make excuses and blame events or other people. Eventually, however, a threshold is passed and your view of that person switches from, say, "maverick" to "inconsistent" or even "erratic"?
The drive to be (and look) consistent constitutes a highly potent weapon of social influence, often causing us to act in ways that are contrary to our own best interest...To understand why consistency is so powerful a motive, we should recognize that, in most circumstances, consistency is valued and adaptive. Inconsistency is commonly thought to be an undesirable personality trait. The person whose beliefs, words, and deeds don't match is seen as confused, two-faced, and even mentally ill. On the other side, a high degree of consistency is normally associated with personal and intellectual strength. It is the heart of logic, rationality, stability, and honesty.
Once that threshold is crossed, a different mental pattern takes over. People who formerly ignored inconsistencies now focus on them, and are repelled. Every lurch from one message to a totally different one, every "Hail, Mary" gambit, not only gets noticed, but reinforces a perception of "confused, two-faced, and even mentally ill."
It takes a lot to push people into shifting these mental filters. Luckily for us, McCain has spent the past two weeks doing just that. He'll have a hard time recovering from this - once the filters shift, discordant information gets noticed, and it's hard to get back into the rut. And every new gambit he tries just reinforces the new pattern.
Meanwhile, we can comfortably continue along our mental trackway because we are blessed with a candidate who actually fits our view of what should be, and who is consistent and who exhibits "both personal and intellectual strength" along with "logic, rationality, stability, and honesty."
The absence of cognitive dissonance - what a lovely thing!