Below is an excerpt but I recommend reading the entire article “There's a psychological reason anti-vaccine misinformation is so hard to fight” which was published on Salon and republished on RawStory.
It is by Doreen Dodgen-Magee, Psy.D. She is an author, psychologist, researcher, and speaker. She wrote the forthcoming "Restart: Designing a Healthy Post-Pandemic Life,” to be released in October, and the Nautilus Gold Medal winning book, "Deviced! Balancing Life and Technology in a Digital World." She is an expert in how social media effects people’s psychology and shapes their attitudes and beliefs. She also wrote “Our technology dependence has made us ill-prepared for quarantine” in Salon in May, 2020.
In our social media lives we too often seek intense reaction rather than positive or helpful reactions, leading us to privilege sensationalized content. We want more engagement, not necessarily more grounded facts, so we do what we need to do to garner attention in digital spaces. Unconsciously, this deepens our commitment to the positions we take and reinforces our belief that the behaviors that flow from these positions are righteous and good.
Commitment bias, also known as the escalation of commitment,* See footnote refers to our tendency to adhere to positions we've taken, especially publicly, regardless of information that challenges them. It leaves us sticking with ideas and behaviors long past their usefulness or adherence to our values, simply so that we can appear to be consistent thinkers who never have to face the uncomfortable realization that we can be wrong — often about important things. The loud social media stances which many vaccine-hesitant individuals have powerfully asserted may well be fed by this bias — unconsciously driving them, along with their followers, to maintain a white-knuckle hold on their position, regardless of any evidence to the contrary.
The sunk cost fallacy may intensify this reality, causing people to maintain adherence to a thought or behavior (e.g. avoiding getting the vaccine) even when the costs of doing so outweigh the benefits. The sunk cost fallacy contributes to why we stay in relationships long past realizing they're unhealthy or keep working on a failing project because we've already spent so much time and energy on it that to leave it feels like a waste. Even though we know, in our guts, that our adherence is based on faulty information, our need to save face keeps us firmly committed to the path we publicly set ourselves on.
My take on this as psychotherapist, though not an expert on how social media effects people, is that the author has hit upon how the exponential growth of reliance on social media has added to or replaced much face-to-face interaction in shaping belief systems.
Associating with people who share your beliefs in person is a powerful factor in reinforcing existing beliefs and biases. Add to this the effects of social media where people express their beliefs in a public way, whether to a large audience if one is well known, or a small group (Facebook friends for example) this makes these non-fact based shared beliefs extraordinarily difficult to alter even in the face of overwhelming scientific and other evidence, even personal experience.
This is compelling is a crucial new paradigm in the psychology of understanding human nature in the age of social media.
* Footnote
Commitment bias is related to but not the same as confirmation bias:
A confirmation bias is a type of cognitive bias that involves favoring information that confirms your previously existing beliefs or biases.
Confirmation bias
- Confirmation bias is the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or strengthens one's prior personal beliefs or hypotheses.
- People also tend to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting their existing position.
Commitment bias is the tendency to be consistent with what we have already done or said we will do in the past, particularly if this is public. Inconsistency is not a desirable trait, thus people try hard to keep their promises and reflect consistency. (Reference)
Both conformation bias and commitment bias are very powerful forces in personality and when combined together in the service of maintaining and expressing false beliefs they can be dangerous for the health of the body politic and the bodies of a citizenry..
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The Original Poll (here) was poorly word and changed as below. Strongly anti—vaxxer is a judgement call but let’s say it means adamantly against vaccination as opposed to vaccine hesitant.
Poll
68
votes
Show Results
Your experience with anti-vaxxers: How many people do you know who were strong anti-vaxxers who changed their minds and got vaccinated?
68
votes
Vote Now!
Your experience with anti-vaxxers: How many people do you know who were strong anti-vaxxers who changed their minds and got vaccinated?
I don't know any anti-vaxxers
I suspect I know some anti-vaxxers but am not sure
I know for sure one or more and doubt any will get vaccinated
I know one or more and think they are considering it
I know for sure one person has
I know 6 ore more who have
Too uncertain to answer survey
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