unSpun_ Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation - Brooks Jackson [35]
Marketers use the insights from such studies against us. An Internet-based salesman named Alexi Neocleous tells potential clients that Langer’s study shows “because” is “a magic word [that] literally forces people to buckle at the knees and succumb to your offer.” He adds, “The lesson for you is, give your prospects the reason why, no matter how stupid it may seem to YOU!”
The lesson we should draw as consumers and citizens is just the opposite: watch out for irrelevant or nonexistent reasons, and make important decisions attentively. “Mindlessness” and reliance on mental shortcuts are often fine; we probably won’t go far wrong buying the most popular brand of soap or toothpaste even if “best-selling” doesn’t really mean “best.” Often the most popular brand is as good a choice as any other. But when we’re deciding on big-ticket items, it pays to switch on our brains and think a bit harder.
How can we break the spell? Research shows that when people are forced to “counterargue”—to express the other side’s point of view as well as their own—they are more likely to accept new evidence rather than reject it. Try what Jonathan Baron, of the University of Pennsylvania, calls active open-mindedness. Baron recommends putting initial impressions to the test by seeking evidence against them as well as evidence in their favor. “When we find alternatives or counterevidence we must weigh it fairly,” he says in his book Judgment Misguided. “Of course, there may sometimes be no ‘other side,’ or it may be so evil or foolish that we can dismiss it quickly. But if we are not open to it, we will never know.”
That makes sense to us. We need to ask ourselves, “Are there facts I don’t know about because I haven’t looked for them? What am I missing here?” Otherwise, we’re liable to end up like Mrs. Keech’s UFO cultists, preaching with utter conviction that Guardians from the Planet Clarion really do exist, or like the blustering General Schwarzkopf angrily denying the truth about those burned-out tanker trucks. It’s better to be aware of our own psychology, to know that our brains tend to “light up” to reinforce our existing beliefs when we hear our favorite candidates or positions challenged. To avoid being deceived (or deceiving ourselves) we have to make sure the pictures in our heads come as close to reflecting the world outside as they reasonably can.
Chapter 5
Facts Can Save Your Life
GETTING THE FACTS RIGHT IS IMPORTANT. IT CAN SAVE YOUR money, your health, even your freedom.
We’re not exaggerating one bit. Consider the story of Daniel Bullock, a California physician who got spun by a sleazy tax-shelter promoter and then received some unwelcome visitors carrying badges and guns. “My seventeen-year-old daughter answered the door to some armed federal agents from the [IRS] criminal investigation division,” he recalled. “That was a bad day.” And worse followed: Bullock lost his medical license and served eight months in a federal prison camp, all because he had failed to check the facts when a smooth-talking promoter sold him what turned out to be a criminal tax-evasion scam.
Bullock was a churchgoing orthopedic surgeon from Mount Shasta, California, who did volunteer work in Central America. But like a lot of people, he hated paying his taxes, and resented the stories he had heard about how others avoided taxes entirely. “When I encountered someone with ‘inside information’ on how the very wealthy avoid taxes I was all ears,” Bullock told a Senate subcommittee in 2002, after he had started serving his sentence. “He had a good story, a well used and ‘successful’ strategy, hundreds of clients and legal opinions in support of his program.” Bullock fell into the “I don’t want to hear it” trap. He was so convinced that his benefactor had discovered a legal way to avoid paying taxes that he failed to look for evidence to the contrary.
Bullock bought into a preposterous scheme that sent his earnings on a round trip to the Caribbean through a