While assessing the credibility of sources is always important, the next pandemic will make this a matter of life and death. Those of us who are not epidemiologists or medical professionals must rely on others for information. While some people will provide accurate information, there will also be well-meaning people unintentionally spreading unsupported or even untrue claims. There will also be people knowingly spreading disinformation. Your well-being and even survival will depend on being able to determine which sources are credible and which are best avoided.
There are two types of credibility: rational and rhetorical. While a bit oversimplified, rational credibility means that you should logically believe the source and rhetorical credibility means that you feel you should believe the source. The difference between the two rests on the distinction between logical force and psychological force.
Logical force is objective and is a measure of how well the evidence for a claim supports it. In the case of logical arguments, this is assessed in ways ranging from applying the standards of an inductive argument, to creating a truth table to working through deductive proof. To the degree that a source has rational credibility it is logical to accept the relevant claims from that source.
Psychological force is subjective and is a measure of how much emotional influence something has on a person’s willingness to believe a claim. This is assessed in practical terms: how effective was it in persuading someone to accept the claim? While the logical force of an argument is independent of the audience, psychological force is audience dependent. What might persuade one person to accept a claim might enrage another into rejecting it with extreme prejudice. Political devotion provides an excellent example of the relativity of psychological force. If you present a claim to Democrats and Republicans and attribute it to Trump, you will get different reactions.
Psychological force provides no reason or evidence for a claim. But it is more effective at persuading people than logical force. To use an analogy, the difference between the two is like the difference between junk food and kale. While junk food is tasty, it lacks nutritional value. While kale is good for you, many people find it unappealing. Because of this distinction, when people ask me how to “win” arguments, I always ask them what they mean by “win.” If they mean “provide proof that my claim is true”, then I say they should use logic. If they mean “get people to feel I am right, whether I am right or not”, then I say they should focus on psychological force. Rhetoric and fallacies (bad logic) have far more psychological force than good logic, which creates no end of problems.
The vulnerability of people to psychological force makes it dangerous during a pandemic. When people assess sources based on how they feel, they are far more likely to accept disinformation and misinformation. This leads to acting on false beliefs which can get people killed. Health and survival during a pandemic depend on being able to correctly assess sources and this requires being able to neutralize (or at least reduce) the influence of psychological force. This is a hard thing to do, especially since the fear and desperate hope created by a pandemic makes people even more vulnerable to psychological force and less trusting of logic. It is my hope that this guide will provide some small assistance to people in the next pandemic.
One step in weakening psychological force is being aware of factors that are logically irrelevant but psychologically powerful. One set of factors consists of qualities that make people appealing but have no logical relevance to whether their claims are credible. One irrelevant factor is the appearance of confidence. A person who makes eye contact, has a firm handshake, is not sweating, and does not laugh nervously seems credible, which is why scammers and liars learn to behave this way. But reflection shows these are irrelevant to rational credibility. To use my usual silly math example, imagine someone saying “I used to think 2+2=4, but Billy looked me right in the eye and confidently said 2+2=12. So that must be true.” Obviously, there are practical reasons to look confident when making claims, but confidence proves nothing. And lack of confidence disproves nothing. To use a silly example, “I used to think 2+2=4, but Billy seemed nervous and unsure when he said that 2+2=4. So, he must be wrong.”
Rhetorical credibility also arises from qualities that you might look for in a date or friend. These can include physical qualities such as height, weight, attractiveness and style of dress. These also include age, ethnicity, and gender. But these are all logically irrelevant to rational credibility. To use the silly math example, “Billy is tall, handsome, straight, wearing a suit, and white so when he says that 2+2=12, he must be right!” Anyone should recognize that as bad “logic.” Yet when a source is appealing, people tend to believe them despite the irrelevance of the appeal. One defense is to ask yourself if you would still believe the claim if it was made by someone unappealing to you.
Rhetorical credibility also arises from good qualities that are irrelevant to rational credibility. These include kindness, niceness, friendliness, sincerity, compassion, generosity and other virtues. While someone who is kind and compassionate will usually not lie, this does not entail that they are a credible source. To use a silly example, “Billy is so nice and kind and he says 2+2=12. I had my doubts at first, but how could someone so nice be wrong?” To use a less silly example, a kind person might be misinformed and unwittingly pass on dangerous disinformation with the best of intentions. A defense is to ask yourself if you would still believe the claim if it was made by someone who has bad qualities. But what about honesty? Surely, we should believe what an honest source says.
While it is tempting to see honesty as the same thing as telling the truth, a more accurate definition is that an honest person says what they think is true. They could be honestly making a false claim. A dishonest person will try to pass off as true what they think is untrue. And even dishonest people do not lie all the time. As such, while honesty does have a positive impact on rational credibility and dishonesty has a negative impact, they are not decisive. But an honest source is preferable to a dishonest one. Sorting out honest and dishonest sources can be challenging.
Group affiliation, ideology and other values have a huge impact on how people judge rhetorical credibility. If a claim is made by someone on your side or matches your values, you will probably be inclined to believe it. For example, Trump supporters will tend to believe what Trump says because Trump says it. If a claim is made by the “other side” or goes against your values, then you will tend to reject it. For example, anti-Trump folks will usually doubt what Trump says. An excellent historical example of how ideology can provide rhetorical credibility is the case of Stalin and Lysenko—by appealing to ideology Lysenko made his false views the foundation of Soviet science. This provides a cautionary tale worth considering. While affiliations and values lead people to engage in motivated “reasoning” it is possible to resist their lure and try to assess the rational credibility of a source.
One defense is to use my stupid math example as a guide: “Trump says that 2+2=12; Trump is my guy so he must be right!” Or “Trump says 2+2=4, but I hate him so he must be wrong.” Another defense is to try to imagine the claim being made by the other side or someone who has different values. For example, a Trump supporter could have imagined Obama or Clinton making the claims about Hydroxychloroquine that Trump made. As a reverse example, Trump haters could try the same thing. This is not perfect defense but might help.
While this short guide tries to help people avoid falling victim to rhetorical credibility standards are also needed to determine when you should probably trust a source—that is, standards for rational credibility. That is the subject of the next essay.
Questions: why does the pictoral for this post look like an amalgam of cartoon and actual human photograph? Is there some point to that? Or, did it entail critical thinking, on my part? (ding!)
Footnote, endnote, sidebar:
Those who are from, or support, bigoted backgrounds, do not support critical thinking. That challenges, questions those backgrounds and positions, the
foundation(s) of which are ancient contextuality…which, in this context, amount to racism.
(Here come de judge…)
(The recent high court decision, in which one justice recused herself, is wrong, in my humble opinion…but that is not my call. One must consider the *reality* of the context…) Further, affiant sayeth not…Why bother?
I especially liked your comparison of logical vs psychological forces. Those influences dovetail nicely with my(?) notion(s) around the emergence of *contextual reality*. Many humans are painfully illogical—they even have trouble putting one foot in front of the other. I can excuse myself, and others, on this count because cognition generally declines with age, disability and daily pain. Coping with all that makes critical thinking more difficult than it was when we were young and fit. Putting that aside though, psychology rebounds to give us, maybe, half a chance. Thinking *critically* means, to me, adopting an objective stance and rejecting bias of any sort. This comports with my background in admin law: EVERYONE is wrong until facts and proof show someone is RIGHT. For those who are constrained by a contextual reality, there is no room for critical thinking, because there is no room for logic either. Psychology could save us, in the event of the next pandemic. I have less hope for logic, though—there is far too much foolishness blocking it now. Too much noise, not enough signal. McLuhan* did not say that, but he was going there. Pretty sure. Regards, all. PDV.
* The Medium is the Message
Sorry about my (probably tiresome) ad hominems, but most people are fools. As I say: fake news are for idiots. The only excusable people are younger people, they are more subject to a natural tendency to believe what they want, rather than what is true.
The reason I say most people are fools, is simply this: it’s not that hard to get the true facts, as far as this is possible. The first thing to do, is what not to do: one should never read anything on any ‘social media’ outlet. Ever. The second, to read information only from credible enough sources, in First World countries, and even below, this means government and health institutions, etc. It’s just so stupid to believe a stranger on facebook instead of government sources. In the case of health related information, one should only get it only from national sources who aren’t trying to make a quick buck, the WHO, etc.
But people are dumb. Dumb enough to elect a dumbster as Trump, just look at what he did yesterday, he accused the African president about claims already discredited and showed him videos of dubious provenance. Yet, he dismisses stuff he hears in the news.
It’s a new, idiotic era. Sorry about my terrible argument, Dr LaBossiere. I am not a fine philosopher like you, or even a mediocre one, but the difference between me and those other idiots is that I am an idiot who tries to learn something, whereas they don’t. I wish you a great rest of the week.
”….In general, the wisest people of every age have always said the same things. Likewise, the fools have done just the same. And so it will continue.”. – Arthur Schopenhauer
PS. Of course, as you very well know, even the most credible sources of information may be wrong, but in the main, they are always the best sources; i.e. the least worse. But to dismiss that and search for such information on facebook, in a world already known to be extremely manipulative, truly shows the low levels of intelligence one has, let’s be honest.
It’s like trying to survive, and looking for food in the sewers, instead of the woods, the sea, etc.
PPS. of course, that the wisest people of every age have always said the same things, does not at all means that they are not needed. They are needed in every age. Someone has to do that work.