You are an educated reader, so I know that you know that vaccines do not cause autism. However, you probably have also read headlines such as the recent U.S. Health and Human Services release, “Autism Epidemic Runs Rampant.” Is there an epidemic-level increase in autism rates? Are vaccines involved in any way? Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) diagnoses have multiplied. Successive editions of my introductory psychology texts have offered updated Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates of U.S. childhood autism rates: My ninth edition, published in 2009, reported that 1 in 150 children were diagnosed. Tenth edition (2012): 1 in 110 Eleventh edition (2014): 1 in 68 Twelfth edition (2020): 1 in 59 Fourteenth edition (2023): 1 in 54 Briefer edition (2024): 1 in 38 Briefest edition (2025): 1 in 31 There are at least two possible contributors to a genuine autism increase. Premature babies more often get diagnosed with autism, and with medical advances today’s preemies more often survive to experience childhood. Also, older parents more often give birth to children with autism, so the increasing age of birthing parents may contribute. But other possibilities seemingly explain most of the increased autism reporting: Relabeling of children’s disorders. Increased ASD diagnoses have been partly offset by a decrease in children diagnosed with “cognitive disability” or “learning disability.” Better detection. The quintupled rate of autism diagnoses since 2009 also results from increased awareness and early autism detection—rather like breast cancer diagnoses increasing during the 1980s thanks to mammography adoption. Expanded labeling. Broadened criteria for ASD diagnosis may have led to some “concept creep.” With more clinicians trained in early detection, children are being diagnosed today who might earlier have just been considered a bit different. If growing up today, Bill Gates believes he would have been diagnosed with ASD. He reports that, as a child, he was “obsessed with certain projects, missed social cues and could be rude or inappropriate without seeming to notice his effect on others.” As an interviewer noted, “He still rocks back and forth like a metronome as he talks [and] thinks his superpower is his neurodiversity and ability to hyperfocus—he can remember all the number plates of his first employees.” So, to answer my first question, there does appear to be some actual autism increase, though the bigger contributor is likely more liberal diagnosing of children. Now to my second question: What causes autism, and might vaccines be even a small contributor? Vaccines do not cause autism. However, the subtle power of repetition (“vaccines cause autism”) seems to have caused many people to wonder if increased childhood vaccinations partially contribute to an “autism epidemic.” If you are unsure, you have much company, as evident from a 2025 KFF U.S survey: Children receive a measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccination in early childhood, about the time ASD symptoms first get noticed. So, it’s understandable that some parents presumed the vaccination caused the ensuing ASD, an idea that spread after a 1998 British study claimed to have found a vaccine–autism connection. But that anti-vax-inspiring study—“the most damaging medical hoax of the last 100 years”—turned out to be fraudulent. The publication was retracted and its medical author disbarred. Others have worried that thimerosal, a mercury vaccine preservative, might cause autism. But experts discount that possibility, noting also that childhood vaccines since 2001 have been thimerosal-free. Even so, vaccine doubts and fears persist, contributing to this year’s measles outbreak. Yet the evidence could not be clearer. Studies of a gazillion children, including one following more than a million, reveal identical autism rates in those vaccinated and unvaccinated. A slight exception was one study that followed nearly 700,000 Danish children: Those receiving the MMR vaccine were slightly less likely to later be among the 6517 ASD-diagnosed children. Moreover, among children diagnosed with autism after vaccinations, family home movies have revealed less eye contact and other early autism symptoms appearing before vaccination. Although vaccines clearly do not cause autism, other biological factors do. As we document in Psychology, Fourteenth Edition, the prenatal environment can matter, especially when altered by maternal infection, toxins, psychiatric drug use, or stress. But multiple genes matter more. One five-nation study of 2 million people found the heritability of ASD was near 80 percent. If one identical twin is diagnosed with ASD, the chances are about 9 in 10 that the co-twin will be as well, although such twins often differ in symptom severity. So, is there an autism epidemic? There has definitely been a multiplication of autism spectrum diagnoses, to which in utero biology contributes, though the increase appears to be due more to expansive diagnoses. Regardless, vaccines do not contribute. And such neurodiversity can have an upside. As the scientist Temple Grandin reportedly explained on behalf of those sharing her autism diagnosis, “The most interesting people you’ll find are ones that don’t fit into your average cardboard box.” Bill Gates would agree: “If they ever invent a pill where they could say, ‘OK, your social skills will be normal, but your ability to concentrate would also be normal,’ I wouldn’t take the pill.” [June 23, 2025 update: Psychiatrist Allen Frances, who led the task force that created the DSM's expanded definition of ASD, explains here how the changing definition--blurring "the boundary between autism and social awkwardness"--explains the multiplying diagnoses (it's not vaccine related).]  David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind. ... View more

  Image Courtesy of ChatGPT The new U.S. Administration has vowed to end diversity initiatives and “forge a society that is color-blind and merit-based.” Do its policies herald a new era in which all are welcome? Does its “color-blindness” realize Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream that his “four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”? Or is there a case to be made for sustaining education about past racial injustices and welcoming racial inclusion? Today’s controversy is the latest chapter in an ongoing debate over assimilation (merging everyone’s identity, values, and habits into the prevailing culture) versus multiculturalism (recognizing and affirming differences). Those in a majority racial group have tended to favor assimilation—to agree, for example, that “there should be a single center on campus for all students, rather than separate cultural centers for students of different groups.” Better to unify people, say assimilation advocates, than to emphasize differences that can heighten hostility amid conflict. Thus, after the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the country’s government-controlled media ceased referring to Hutu and Tutsi, declaring that “there is no ethnicity here. We are all Rwandan.” On the multicultural-supporting side consider Canada, whose longstanding national policy inverts the new U.S. stance: “Multiculturalism ensures that all citizens can maintain their identities, take pride in their ancestry and have a sense of belonging. It supports our shared values of human rights, inclusion and mutual respect. Our country’s collective identity is rooted in the recognition that our many languages, traditions and beliefs enrich our social fabric.” In his new book, The Science of Racism, social psychologist Keon West argues that color-blindness—“the belief that race should not and does not matter”—fails on three counts: Humans are not color-blind. Humans are predisposed to divide people into categories. When meeting people or seeing their pictures, we immediately see racial identities, much as we see gender. When in a numerical minority—as a Black person among White folks, or a White person amid Black folks—we are also conscious of our own racial identity. When traveling from my mostly White community to visit my daughter in South Africa, I become mindful of my racial identity. Discrimination persists. Since the mid-twentieth century—when only 4 percent of Americans approved of Black-White marriage (unlike today’s 94 percent)—both explicit and implicit prejudices have subsided. Yet much as we might wish or pretend it weren’t so, hate groups have increased. And discrimination persists: Inequitable access. Color-blind policies conceal enduring inequities in access to health care, housing, and voting. Hiring. Study after study after study after study find hiring managers more likely to call back, for example, a “Greg” than a “Jamal,” or an “Emily” over a “Lakisha.” Policing. Studies reveal that in the United States, Black drivers more often than White drivers are stopped by police, and—even when traveling at the same speed as others—are more often cited for speeding and charged higher fines (with less “speed discounting” from sympathetic officers). Color-blindness entrenches White advantage. Color-blind advocates, West documents, express more prejudice, behave more negatively toward ethnic minorities, and more often oppose “actions that might make minorities’ lives better.” They are also less likely to notice workplace discrimination and more likely to dislike a person of color who identifies discrimination. West argues that color-blindness “is not a strategy of improving the world, merely for growing more comfortable with the world as it is.” How, then, can we both recognize and affirm the reality of diversity while promoting unity? Former Spelman College president Beverly Daniel Tatum offers a positive ABC formula: A = affirm identity. Welcome people for who they are and what they uniquely bring. B = build community. Engage by collaborating across differences, harnessing diverse gifts. Identify overarching values and aims. C = cultivate leadership. As my social psychologist colleague Charles Green observes, when “leadership is representative, there is a significantly greater likelihood that the values, concerns, and perspectives of all” will be included. By affirming identity, building community, and cultivating leadership we can, says Green, enhance the experience of all people in an organization. As former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan observed in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture, “Most of us have overlapping identities which unite us with very different groups. We can love what we are . . . [and we] can thrive in our own tradition, even as we learn from others.” David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind. ... View more

In his landmark 2000 book, Bowling Alone, Harvard public policy researcher Robert Putnam documented “the collapse of American community,” marked by declining participation in civic and religious organizations—and even, to use his famous example, by people bowling as much as ever, but more often bowling alone rather than with others. A quarter century later, the trends continue. We are, for example, more often dining alone. The facts: In the Department of Labor’s American Time Use Survey, 1 in 4 Americans reported eating all their meals alone the prior day—up 53 percent since 2003, and even more among young adults. Since 2019, reports OpenTable, solo restaurant reservations have increased 64 percent. Aided by Uber Eats, Grubhub, DoorDash, and meal kit deliveries, we’re also dining at home more, often alone, and dining out with others less. Have you noticed formerly busy restaurants now with empty tables? Dining with others matters, contends the World Happiness Report 2025. Gallup World Poll interviews with more than 150,000 people in 140 countries revealed that “Sharing meals [is] an exceptionally strong indicator of subjective wellbeing.” In the American Time Use Survey, meal sharing similarly predicted well-being among people of all ages. Today’s dining alone, like Putnam’s bowling alone, is an indicator of social disconnection. And social isolation, as social psychologist William von Hippel explains in his new book, The Social Paradox, predicts unhappiness, stress, ill health, and distrust. Moreover, as fellow social psychologist Roy Baumeister and his colleagues document in a forthcoming analysis, computer-mediated communication, even with video, is no match for the engagement, easy turn-taking, eye contact, and pleasure of the face-to-face conversations for which nature designed us. That makes relevant another fact: As most people age, they spend more time alone. So I wondered: Do older adults become happier and healthier if they live in a multigenerational household or move into an affordable retirement community that facilitates shared activities, hallway conversations, and dining together? Designed by www.freepik.com One survey, conducted by Northwestern University in collaboration with a Life Plan Community organization found that, after adjusting to community living, people become more socially engaged and report better physical and social-emotional wellness “than their community-dwelling counterparts.” Of course they do: After investing one’s time and resources in a life transition, people will be motivated to justify their choice. And surely there are those who enjoy the serenity of home-based living, and others who, while staying in their homes, remain socially engaged. But other studies confirm a health and well-being benefit of communal senior living: Researchers at NORC, the University of Chicago’s opinion research center, report that older adults who move into senior communities live a bit longer. A British research team found that, compared to older adults staying in their homes, those moving to a retirement village enjoyed improved emotions, health, and cognition. A Spanish research group reports studies showing that cohousing communities—in which people live in private homes around shared recreational, laundry, garden, and dining/gathering spaces—enable improved resident mental health. Increased dining alone, like Putnam’s bowling alone, highlights our growing social disconnection—and the toll it can take on our health and well-being. Yet we are not helpless. We can initiate conversations, coffee times, and shared meals, as are more often experienced by older adults in communal living. As an old proverb reminds us, “Good food is all the sweeter when shared with good friends.” David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind. ... View more

If blessed with excess applicants, how should colleges and universities screen and select those most likely to thrive academically, to graduate, and ultimately to vocationally succeed?   As a general rule, the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. Thus, high-achieving high school students, as reflected in their grades, will tend to become high-achieving college students. And of course, high school GPA reflects students’ combined ability and diligence—the very traits that will predict their success in college and beyond. But then came grade inflation, with American applicants’ GPA now mostly ranging from 3.5 to 4.0, rather than the previous 2.5 to 4.0. And when the range of any predictor shrinks, so does its predictive power. Among women basketball players ranging from 5’0” to 6’4,” height will predict rebounds snagged, but much less so among those ranging from 6’1” to 6’4.” With high school GPA having become less usefully predictive, admissions officers have looked to other indicators of potential student excellence. Using a more holistic process, they assess the lucidity of students’ essays. They take note of applicants’ extracurricular music lessons, international travel, and volunteerism. They may prioritize students from elite high schools. And they may also prioritize legacy students—those with family ties to, or financial gifts to, their school. Such considerations privilege students from higher income families—those that can fund the best schooling, essay-writing coaches, and extracurricular enrichments for applicants who are less likely than lower-income students to be working after-school jobs. Thus, admissions officers have wished for a better way to identify overlooked talent in unexpected places. From that wish was born test-based selection and the SAT (formerly Scholastic Aptitude Test). Harvard’s Steven Pinker notes that in its initial phase, from the 1930s through most of the twentieth century, standardized testing was “the enlightened policy . . .  since it [could] level a hereditary caste system by favoring the Jenny Cavilleris (poor and smart) over the Oliver Barretts (rich and stupid).” In a second phase, from the early 2000s through the Covid era, critics, mindful of test score disparities among income and racial groups, many argued that the SAT and its cousin, the ACT (originally American College Testing), were biased—with content that favored privileged social groups. To increase student diversity and preclude discrimination, many colleges therefore went test-optional or even “test blind.” But standardized testing advocates cautioned against blaming tests for exposing unequal experiences. If, with malnutrition, young people suffer stunted growth, don’t blame the measuring stick that reveals it. If unequal past experiences affect future achievements, a valid aptitude test will detect such. And an unbiased test will have the same predictive validity—it will work equally well—for people of any social group. Such is the SAT. The SAT correlates about +.5 with first-year undergraduate GPA—and does so for Black students as for White students, for women as for men, for lower-income as for higher-income applicants. This is roughly equivalent to the predictive power of today’s high school GPA across a diverse sample of U.S. colleges and universities. (Before the increase in grade inflation, high school GPA was the better predictor.) So, for most American schools, high school GPA and the SAT (or ACT) both provide useful information. But among highly selective schools, for which applicant GPAs tend to be uniformly high, “high school GPA and class rank now offer little additional predictive power,” notes a new analysis by Dartmouth economists. Likewise, at the selective University of California, Berkeley, “test scores are currently better predictors of first-year GPA than high school grade point average.” Ditto the Ivy League and sister schools. The Dartmouth researchers also document how test-optional policies at selective schools “disproportionately harm” high-achieving applicants “from disadvantaged backgrounds.” In the absence of the standardized tests, selection becomes more arbitrary and subject to family privilege bias. How does one pick among all the eager 4.0 students? Thus, although most colleges in 2025 remain test-optional, MIT, Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth, among others, have returned to requiring standardized tests. In defense of this current third phase—judicious aptitude test use by selective schools or for competitive scholarships—educational researchers have reemphasized these key points: Aptitude tests work. They predict not just college grades, but college persistence through graduation, later vocational success, and even life longevity. Twelve-year olds with SAT scores approximating a top 5 percent college applicant have later earned doctorates at twenty times the normal rate, and have disproportionately produced patents and publications. Test preparation courses are minimally effective, mostly aiding the math component—for which pre-calculus math instruction is also beneficial. Household income better predicts applicants’ essay quality than does SAT scores. Thus shifting from SATs to other criteria such as essays can increase inequality of opportunity. Schools can still prioritize giving opportunity to all social groups and to enriching their campus with diversity. “Once we brought the test requirement back,” explained MIT admissions dean Stuart Schmill, “we admitted the most diverse class that we ever had in our history,” including 31 percent Black and Hispanic students. There is, to be sure, much more to academic and vocational success than academic aptitude and general intelligence. Conscientiousness matters. Grit matters. Social skill matters. Curiosity matters. Creativity matters. Courage matters. And aptitude matters. That is why the SAT serves a prosocial purpose when it enables identification of otherwise unnoticed talent. Such is the case of one West African student to whom I alerted my college—someone who, after earning near perfect SAT scores as a 16-year-old, is now excelling here in physics courses and research, and destined for a high-level STEM career. One New Yorker letter writer—the daughter of a single, uneducated immigrant—explained that the SAT was her springboard to her state’s flagship university, “and, from there, on to medical school. Flawed thought it is, the SAT afforded me, as it has thousands of others, a way to prove that a poor, public-school kid who never had any test prep can do just as well as, if not better than, her better-off peers.” Napkin.AI visual synopsis of this essay: David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind.   ... View more

What predicts a happy life? As I explained long ago in The Pursuit of Happiness, there are some things that I might have guessed would matter. But one’s age, gender, or race, for example, matter little. Money helps to a point—better to be able to afford life’s necessities and to feel control over one’s life than not. Yet ever-increasing wealth provides diminishing well-being returns. Moreover, the last half-century’s remarkable growth in average real income and purchases (albeit with rising inequality) us has left people a bit less happy. What does matter—what best predicts whether people report being “very happy”—is close, supportive relationships. We are, as Aristotle recognized, social animals. Our ancestral history has destined us to flourish with others. For our hunter-gatherer forebears, six hands were better than two. We therefore have what today’s social psychologists, notably Roy Baumeister and Mark Leary, call a “need to belong.” When supported by intimate friendships or a committed marriage, we are much likelier to declare ourselves “very happy.” When socially deprived—when exiled, ostracized, bereaved, or imprisoned in solitary confinement—we feel lonely and adrift. Social support matters. Friend number predicts happiness. “Happiness seems made to be shared,” noted the French dramatist Pierre Corneille. So it seems from answers to a question asked of Americans by the National Opinion Research Center: “Looking over the last six months, who are the people with whom you discussed matters important to you?” Compared with those who could name no such intimate, those who named five or more such friends were 60 percent more likely to feel “very happy.” And then a curious thing happened on the way into the twenty-first century. Our close face-to-face relationships have waned. We’re marrying later, and less often. We’re not just more often Bowling Alone, to use political scientist Robert Putnam’s famous metaphor, but also spending less time socializing with others. The American Time Use Survey reveals that we are (in minutes per day) hanging out together less. (To replace the diminished engagement, some have created interactive online AI friends.) Decreased face-to-face social connections are most striking among teens and young adults. As my Social Psychology text co-author Jean Twenge has amply documented, today’s teens are dating less, partying less, and being with friends less. Much less. They also have fewer friends. Their decreasing time with friends is not, as some have speculated, because they are working more or doing more homework. If anything, they’re employed less and doing less homework. But, you say, being alone needn’t mean being lonely. Sometimes we savor solitude. Moreover, texting and social media posting enable social connections. Although texting enables efficient connections, hearing others humanizes them. As Juliana Schroeder, Michael Kardas, and Nicholas Epley have found, people seem more thoughtful, competent, and likable when we hear, not just read, their voices. Moreover, teen and young adult depression, anxiety, suicide ideation, and loneliness have increased concurrently with the increasing home-bound solitude, and mainly for those spending long daily hours staring at social media screens rather than engaging with people in-person, face-to-face. In one of her informative Substack essays, Jean Twenge recently displayed Monitoring the Future survey responses of U.S. 13- to 18-year-olds, showing the percentage reporting depressive symptoms (with data from the depressing Covid years excluded). Our screens are not only a time suck from sleeping, reading, and schooling, but also from relationships. And consider other societal sources of our social malnutrition: At-home remote work. Many people love the convenience and lessened travel time and expense, but they come at the price of connecting with colleagues in the mailroom, over the coffee pot, and in office meetings. Take-out food, sometimes with contactless delivery. We love the convenience of take-out foods, albeit with less time leisurely dining out with friends. In the UK, the result has been a long-term decline in the number of people in pubs and nightclubs. Online shopping. We love the efficiency of one-click purchases and home delivery, even if putting out of business some shops where we once mingled with others and had chance conversations. Decreased attendance at churches, museums, and school sports. Fewer folks are joining others at worship places, museum galleries, and high school and small college sporting events. During the 1996–1997 college season, the NCAA Division III men’s basketball attendance at the three schools with the most attendance averaged 2467 fans per game; last year it was just 1397. I confess that I love being able to watch my school’s livestreamed out-of-town basketball games. But that convenience means that I’m less likely to enjoy being with fellow fans traveling together to cheer them on. The drains on our in-person, empathy-enabling relationships seem baked into modern life. Yet we are not helpless. We can reinvigorate the priority we give to close relationships. We can put down our phones and give conversational partners our focused attention. We can resolve to take the initiative to dine more often with friends, meet more often with colleagues, exchange confidences more often with family members. We can stick our head into coworkers’ work spaces. We can video-call relatives. We can establish sit-down family mealtimes. We can initiate micro-friendships—pleasing brief relationships with our baristas, seatmates, and ride-share drivers. Today’s digital world enriches our lives—but especially so when we retain a central place for face-to-face active listening and engagement. Sharing our lives in person with those who love and support us has two effects, observed the seventeenth-century sage Francis Bacon: “It redoubleth joys, and cutteth griefs in half.” David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind. ... View more

Among the proffered explanations for Donald Trump’s 1.47 percent victory margin over Kamala Harris, the most prominent has been inflation. Pandemic-era inflation did outpace Americans’ earnings growth for a time. But since 2022, Americans’ incomes have outpaced today’s lower inflation rate—yielding a nominal net gain in median real (inflation-adjusted) income during the Biden presidency. So why in early 2024 did 57 percent of Americans perceive, to Harris’ detriment, that “over the past two years . . . the economy has gotten worse” (even with a record stock market and job growth)? Let’s reframe the question. Imagine the economies of two countries. Over the last four years, Country A has experienced a flat economy, with no inflation and no income increases—thus with stable purchasing power for the average citizen. Country B has experienced 20 percent inflation and 20 percent after-tax income increases—thus also with stable purchasing power for the average citizen. Question: In which country are people unhappiest with their economy, and most likely to vote out their current leaders? A simple, powerful social psychological principle suggests an answer. We humans have a natural self-serving bias. This bias leads us not only to overrate our virtues (nearly everyone thinks they’re better than the average driver) but also to attribute bad outcomes to external factors and good outcomes to ourselves. When athletes lose, they may blame bad luck or unfair officiating, while attributing wins to their superior skill and effort. “What have I done to deserve this?” is a question we more often ask of our troubles than our successes. Self-serving bias helps explain voters’ unhappiness. Drawing from other economists, Paul Krugman observes that people tend not to see inflation as lifting their incomes along with their grocery prices. Rather, they attribute inflation to government policy, while attributing income gains to their own efforts. Thus, people in Country B—which approximates the U.S. of the last four years—will be more displeased with their economy than will those in the economically equivalent Country A.   So, when prices and incomes rise together—preserving people’s purchasing power—they will tend to accept credit for their increased wages, while blaming those in charge for inflation . . . and thus to vote out the party in power. And, like it or not, that’s an example of the social psychology of everyday life. David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind. ... View more

Plans to detain millions of undocumented immigrants in “vast holding facilities” evoke déjà vu for us folks native to Puget Sound’s Bainbridge Island. We’ve heard that story before. Bainbridge was ground zero for an earlier mass exclusion, the World War II incarceration of 120,000 west coast Japanese Americans, citizen and noncitizen alike. Their removal began with Exclusion Order No. 1, giving our island’s Japanese Americans six days to settle their affairs before being transported to desolate camps for the war’s ensuing three years. At the March 30, 1942 ferry departure point—now the site of a national Japanese American Exclusion Memorial—other island residents (including my father, the insurance agent for many) gathered to say their heartbroken goodbyes.   Although differing, the two mass exclusions each illustrate two social psychological phenomena. Overblown fear. Our human fears are fed more by vivid (easily remembered, cognitively available) anecdotes than by representative data. Thus, fueled by widely-publicized immigrant crime stories, many Americans fear an “immigrant crime wave.” Nearly 6 in 10 agree that “the large number of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. is leading to more crime”—despite the reality that immigrants (both legal and undocumented) have an incarceration rate well below that of U.S.-born citizens. World War II-era media similarly hyped a false threat of Japanese Americans as potential spies and saboteurs. Racist caricatures and dehumanizing language fueled hate crimes, including vandalism and vigilante violence. Contact matters.  One of social psychology’s great lessons is that prejudice decreases with friendly social contact between people of equal status, while minimal contact sustains prejudice. In today’s world, anti-immigrant sentiment in both Germany and the U.S. runs strongest in states with the fewest immigrants. West Virginians, whose state has the lowest proportion of undocumented immigrants, have been most likely to disagree that “the growing number of newcomers from other countries strengthens American society.” Likewise, in World War II California, where people of European and Japanese descent mostly lived separately, fewer people bid the internees goodbye. On their return, many signs banning Japanese American customers made clear they were unwelcome. Separation makes the heart grow colder. On Bainbridge, where all islanders intermingled as school classmates, in neighborhoods, and in businesses, wartime camp news from the excluded Islanders was shared via the island paper. At the high school graduation, 13 empty chairs symbolized the missing friends. Post-war, the returning internees were greeted with food and support, and their descendants today operate some of the island’s thriving businesses. Contact works. The exclusion memorial and its motto offer a reminder that speaks to our present. It was created, states the Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community, “to instruct future generations about the injustices of the past and to be forever vigilant about the fragility of assumed rights.” It commemorates “the strength and perseverance of the people involved—both those exiled and their island neighbors,” and reminds us of our capacity “to heal, forgive and care for one another.” David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind. ... View more

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me keep my mind on what matters, which is my work, which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished. ~ from Mary Oliver’s “Messenger” Psychological science sometimes confirms our beliefs, and sometimes challenges them. My young adult self never would have guessed that: the home “shared environment” effect on our personality traits, sexual orientation, and intelligence is, apart from abuse or neglect, minimal. (Genes and peer influences matter more.) Although our values, politics, and religion are home-influenced, we would, notes behavior geneticist Robert Plomin, “essentially be the same person if we had been adopted at birth and raised in a different family.” repression rarely occurs. Experience a trauma—a disaster, a parent’s murder, or a battlefield terror—and we’re much more likely to be haunted by unforgettable flashbacks.  some therapies have disappointingly little long-term effect (think weight-loss programs) while others are surprisingly helpful (electroconvulsive therapy for intractable depression).  But perhaps the biggest revelation has been the enormity of our unconscious information processing. Given the scientific discounting of Freud’s seething unconscious mind, I have been amazed at the extent to which our lives are guided by automatic (unconscious) rather than controlled (conscious) information processing. Witness  blindsight: brain-damaged people processing visual stimuli that they do not consciously perceive—enabling them to intuitively navigate around unseen objects. problem-solving without conscious thinking: our still-working unseen mind spontaneously producing fresh insights after not-thinking (even sleeping).  implicit memory: learning new skills or conditioned associations without conscious effort or awareness. We know more than we know we know. subliminal priming: having our thinking and emotions “primed” by unperceived stimuli. When exposed to a fearsome animal on screen for one-fiftieth of a second, which is then immediately masked with a fuzzy screen, people will perceive only a flash of light—which may, nevertheless, arouse an emotion that influences their judgment of an ensuing perceived stimulus. Regarding this last nifty unconscious talent, researchers have wondered: If fear responses can be elicited and conditioned without our awareness, might they also be extinguished without our awareness? Malombra76/Getty Images For those with phobias, exposure therapy—repeatedly engaging your fears by seeing pictures of what one fears, or of having live exposure to such—helps. But it’s the psychological equivalent of a dental root canal. The result is that many decline the therapy, or drop out. So researchers have pondered: Might stress-free subliminal exposure to feared stimuli help extinguish phobias? Might repeated brief, masked exposure to, say, feared spiders weaken people’s automatic physiological arousal? In their new Psychological Bulletin analysis of 39 controlled experiments, SUNY Purchase psychologist Paul Siegel and University of Southern California psychiatrist Bradley Peterson report that “exposing phobic persons to their feared stimulus without conscious awareness” works. Those who experience the unconscious exposure therapy become less consciously fearful and less avoidant of the dreaded stimulus. Moreover, physiological measures confirm their decreased fear.  Siegel and his colleagues illustrate: Their controlled experiments exposed some arachnophobic (spider-fearing) people to spiders very briefly (and unconsciously). Afterward, they became less fearful of, and more willing to approach, a live tarantula. The phobia relief, confirmed by diminished physiological arousal, proved lasting. And it surpassed the relief from stressful conscious exposure therapy.  This “very brief exposure” research “positions unconscious exposure as a new treatment for specific phobia,” conclude Siegel and Peterson. Before appreciating unconscious information processing, I would not have predicted this result, and even now am surprised. But as Agatha Christie’s sleuth Miss Marple observed, “facts are facts, and if one is proved to be wrong, one must just be humble about it and start again.” The unconscious therapy effect also affirms one of the great insights of modern psychological science: our capacity for dual processing. Our conscious mind presumes that its intentions rule our lives. Yet much of our thinking occurs below the radar of our attention. We have a conscious thinking system, and another thinking system out of sight. Our memory, thinking, language, attitudes, and perceptions operate partly on an aware, deliberate “high road,” but also on a vast, unconscious, automatic “low road.” We are, as the Psalmist observed, “wonderfully made.” Our one amazing brain interweaves two magnificent minds.  (David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind.)   ... 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In the face of good news, consider our head-scratching negativity: Soaring prosperity and souring assessments. In the last half-century, Americans have enjoyed more than doubled real incomes—and more than doubled per-person rates of so many things we enjoy—from cars to eating out, from home air conditioning to dishwashers, from color TV to channel and streaming options. A half-century ago, no one imagined laptops, smartphones, or even Post-it notes. And we had fewer human rights and a life expectancy 8 years briefer. Yet 58 percent of Americans responding to a Pew survey say “life in America” is worse today than 50 years ago; only 23 percent see it as better.  A thriving economy perceived as worsening. More recently, the U.S. output of goods and services (the GDP) reached an all-time high, as has the stock market and people’s retirement accounts. Post-pandemic inflation has plummeted, with wage increases outpacing inflation. Unemployment is near a 50-year low. Yet recent surveys find that “51 percent wrongly believe that unemployment is nearing a 50-year high,” that 72 percent believe inflation is increasing, and that 57 percent agree “over the past two years . . . the economy has gotten worse.” Crime is down, but feels up. Since the early 1990s, the rates of violent and property crime—as collected by the FBI and confirmed in the National Crime Victimization Survey—have fallen by half to two-thirds. Yet year after year, 7 in 10 Americans tell Gallup they believe crime has increased in the past year. Immigrants are less crime-prone, yet seem more so. “The likelihood of an immigrant being incarcerated is 60 percent lower than of people born in the United States,” reports the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (confirming other reports). Yet 57 percent of Americans tell Pew “the large number of migrants seeking to enter the U.S. is leading to more crime.” In words and images, Donald Trump’s demonization of immigrants reflects and fans this fearful negativity: “The United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime.” Immigrants would “walk into your kitchen, they’ll cut your throat.” This negativity bias—the tendency for bad or threatening news and images to hijack our thinking and responding—extends to our everyday life. Perhaps you have noticed that:  Criticisms outweigh praise. At work and in our relationships, criticism captures more of our attention and emotions than does praise. Cruel words hurt us more than kind words please us. It takes multiple compliments to offset the hurt of one hostile student evaluation, for example, or of a co-worker’s single disparaging remark. A happy, stable marriage is said to require five or more positive acts and words to offset each negative exchange. Negative acts dominate. A good reputation is more readily reversed with a single act of dishonesty or disloyalty than is a bad reputation by a single act of honesty or loyalty. Because negative information seems more diagnostic of character, voters are more responsive to negative information (and ads) than positive. Is it true of you? Is your voting driven more by intense opposition to the candidate you dislike than by intense support for the one you favor? Bad is more potent than good. Bad events of our lives evoke more misery than good events evoke joy. Losing money pains us more than gaining equivalent money thrills us. Children’s miseries provoke more parental empathy and rumination than do their successes. Thus, many a parent is only as happy as their least happy child. Negative words and news predominate. As psychologist Roy Baumeister and colleagues have noted, there are more negative emotion words than positive. When asked to think of emotion words, sadness, anger, and fear come to mind more quickly than words for positive emotions. In our daily news feeds, bad news prevails. The journalistic maxim: “We don’t cover planes that land.” Negativity drives news consumption. One analysis found that across 105,000 news stories, each additional headline negative word “increased the click-through rate by 2.3 percent.” Moreover, lies and misinformation spread faster than truth. As satirist Jonathan Swift recognized in 1710, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while truth is putting on its shoes.” Negativity bias isn’t the whole story. Unless depressed, people tend to be more positive—even excessively optimistic—about their own personal future. Students see themselves as more likely than their average classmate to progress to high educational attainment, to get a high-paying job, and to own a nice home. Adults see themselves as less vulnerable than others to future heart disease, cancer, or substance abuse.  And although only 18 percent of Americans said the national economy was good or excellent in a Federal Reserve survey, 73 percent said their own finances were doing okay or better. Likewise, while folks see crime as rampant and increasing in the nation, they see their own town and neighborhood as safe, healthy places. My part of America is fine, most think, while nevertheless often agreeing with Donald Trump that “our country is in decline, we are a failing nation.” When psychologists Adam Mastroianni and Daniel Gilbert collected survey responses from 12.5 million people across 60 countries and 70 years, they found the same perception of societal decline. People everywhere report no change in their own moral behaviors, yet see morality (kindness, honesty, etc.) in decline, even as the world has become more humane—with subsiding war, murder, child abuse, and slavery. There is biological wisdom beneath this pervasive negative bias. Our sensitivity to threats served our ancestors. Those who interpreted the sound of a cracking twig as a predator rather than the wind left more descendants.  Moreover, negative happenings often are accompanied by visual images, which can overwhelm more representative data like facts and statistics. Vivid anecdotes often eclipse facts and statistics. Images of murderous immigrants, crashing planes, and starving children seize our attention, get remembered, touch our hearts, and sway our judgments. Small wonder that while the percentage of the world’s population living in extreme poverty has plummeted by two-thirds since 1990, 87 percent of folks surveyed across 24 countries believe global poverty has either stayed the same or gotten worse. To see is to believe.  So, given our attunement to negative news in a world awash in negative news, how might we restrain our natural negativity? How can we steer our minds between starry-eyed personal optimism that denies real threats (“People are basically good; everything will work out”) and societal dark despair (“It’s hopeless; why bother trying?”). How can we balance enough realism to fuel concern with enough optimism to provide hope? Here are four suggestions: Attend also to good news. We can expose ourselves not only to the world’s horrors but to its encouraging news. My recommendation: Subscribe to the weekly “Fix the News” email that identifies worldwide good news about human flourishing and environmental progress. Keep criticisms and bad news in perspective. In our house, when hit by bad news, we ask ourselves, “Will children die?” That’s our way of asking whether it’s that big a deal. I also remind myself that my response to today’s bad news will likely have a short half-life. People recover more quickly than they expect. As the late psychologist and Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman observed in Thinking Fast and Slow, “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is, while you are thinking about it.” Count your blessings. Pause to be mindful of the positive people and events in your life. An old Gospel hymn had the idea (albeit overstated):  Are you ever burdened with a load of care? Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear? Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly, And you will keep singing as the days go by. 4. Think smart. News of a “healthy doctor” dying two weeks after a Covid shot (never mind that 8,000+ people die daily) fed anti-vax fears that contributed to a reported 234,000 needless Covid deaths. But we can think smarter. When a grim anecdote, photo, or video alarms you, pause to reflect: “Yes, that school shooting, that immigrant murder, that shoplifting spree, that police brutality was a terrible happening. But how representative is it? Show me the data—data that represent not isolated stories but countless people’s stories.” As we process the barrage of negative news and “failing nation” rhetoric, our great challenge is to base our politics and lives on facts rather than fears, on data rather than doom. Better an informed optimism than a naive negativity. (David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind.) 11/13/24 P.S. Some Reuters/Ipsos pre-election survey insights: ... View more

“Inches make champions.” ~Football coach Vince Lombardi In his 2024 Dartmouth University commencement address, tennis superstar Roger Federer illustrated how great achievements need not require great innate superiority. By developing just the slightest edge over one’s competitors, gratifying results may ensue. After acknowledging that he won nearly 80 percent of his 1526 tennis matches, he asked his audience, “What percentage of the POINTS do you think I won in those matches?” His answer: “Only 54%.” Natural talent matters. “I’m not going to stand here and tell you it doesn’t,” reflected Federer. But, he added, “it’s not about having a gift. It’s about having grit.” In another commencement address, NFL quarterback Tom Brady offered kindred advice: “If you want to be great at something, you’re going to have to put all your commitment and effort and discipline into doing just that.” That recipe—natural talent x disciplined grit --> slight advantage --> great achievement—is confirmed in research on human achievements. Let’s deconstruct the evidence. First, native talent forms the raw material beneath great achievements. Superstars (from Mozart and Einstein to Caitlin Clark) come gifted with exceptional potential. Children who score astronomically high on IQ or SAT tests (recall the Terman geniuses and the Johns Hopkins Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth) later become greatly overrepresented among inventors, scientists, and high earners (Mark Zuckerberg and Lady Gaga among them). In an era when grade inflation has diminished the predictive power of high school grades, some elite universities are, therefore, again using aptitude scores to assist their talent identification. Digital Vision./Getty Images Yet far more is needed. For cooking exceptional achievement, the recipe, as Federer appreciates, is talent times tenacity. Although Thomas Edison’s assertion that “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration” overstates the point, willpower has outperformed intelligence scores in predicting school attendance, performance, and graduation honors. “Discipline outdoes talent,” concluded researchers Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman. With exceptional talent but ordinary motivation, most of the Terman whiz kids, though living happy lives, did not attain eminence or become professionals. In sports and music, tenacity refines natural talent. By their early twenties, top violinists have fiddled double the practice hours of the average violin teacher. Much the same is true for top-flight ballet dancers, chess masters, and, as Federer reminds us, tennis players. Superstar attainments arise when exceptional natural talent is married to extraordinary perseverance. Federer illustrates that if one has enough talent x tenacity to gain even a small edge, the result may accumulate to something special. (Mathematically, tennis players who win 54 percent of points can be expected to exceed Federer’s result, wining near 91 percent of matches.) Life experience offers many examples of small advantages feeding great accomplishment: Contemplate the mathematics of monthly compounding. Twenty-year-old Tom invests a $10,000 inheritance at 8 percent interest. When he retires at age 70, he can withdraw $538,781. Meanwhile, Tom’s clever twin sister Angela examines the options and invests her $10,000 at a smidgen greater rate—9 percent—and will withdraw much more: $885,182. In evolution, a trait that gives only a slight survival advantage can, over many generations, lead to a species’ dominance. An infinitesimal starting difference between two weather systems can produce, days later, two utterly different outcomes (known familiarly as “the butterfly effect”). C. S. Lewis glimpsed the phenomenon in everyday life: “Little decisions you and I make every day are of such infinite importance. The smallest good act today is the capture of a strategic point from which, a few months later, you may be able to go on to victories you never dreamed of.” In the 2024 U.S. Open golf tournament, Bryan DeChambeau’s 274 strokes bested Rory McIlroy by a single stroke, giving DeChambeau a $4.3 million prize, nearly double McIlroy’s $2.32 million runner-up prize. And if little advantages matter, then tenacity can push the envelope: A gritty student who studies a difficult subject an extra 20 minutes a day will likely excel beyond an equally capable classmate—increasing future opportunities at better schools and jobs. Effortfully attracting one new customer a week can, over time, create a thriving business. If each day you set aside the amount of a $4 latte for stock market investing, in 30 years (if the S&P 500’s last 30-year return rate repeats) you’ll have about $248,000. Federer’s experience highlights how mighty oaks grow from little acorns—small advantages bred by tenacity enables talent to bloom. By harnessing the synergy between talent and tenacity, Federer achieved sustained excellence while winning just 54 percent of his points. We, too, by developing our natural talents with relentless perseverance, can similarly gain a slight edge that, over time, can compound to significant accomplishments. From sports to academia to finance, persistent gritty effort sets exceptional achievers apart from their equally talented compatriots. (David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind.) ... View more

“Under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to those with knowledge, but time and chance happen to them all.” ~Ecclesiastes 9:11 As every educated person understands, our traits and fates are predisposed by nature and guided by nurture. But as famed psychologist Albert Bandura emphasized four decades ago, a third force also powerfully steers our lives and world—random, unpredictable chance happenings. “If I had not moved my head at that very last instant, the assassin’s bullet would have perfectly hit its mark and I would not be here tonight,” explained Donald Trump to his convention, after a bullet nicked his right ear as he turned right to view a campaign rally Jumbotron image—meaning he was facing shooter Thomas Crooks instead of perpendicular to him. Two seconds and two inches defined the difference between brain and blood, between catastrophe and an iconic fist-raised photo image that, for his supporters, affirmed his victimhood, his virile courage, and, as with so many folk heroes, his seeming divine protection. “They tried to slander him. They tried to imprison him. Now they have tried to kill him,” proclaimed Ben Carson to the Republican National Convention. “But if God is protecting him, they will never succeed.” Trump reportedly was buoyed by what columnist Ross Douthat called his “incredible, preternatural good luck.” As Trump basked in public sympathy, the betting markets immediately raised his election chances from 60 to 70 percent. And his Trump Media stock opened up 30 percent the following Monday, giving him a paper gain of $1.5 billion. (Both subsided after the ascendance of Kamala Harris.) If Trump’s fortuitous escape were to assist his winning the 2024 presidential election—and to enable his proposed abortion, taxation, deregulation, energy, and immigration policies—then the future will have turned with a mere head turn. As Nicholas Rescher reflected in Luck: The Brilliant Randomness of Everyday Life, “The hand of luck rests heavy on the shoulders of human history.” The sitting president understands the alternative devastating potential of random juxtapositions of time and place. As 30-year-old Joe Biden was two weeks from being sworn in as a senator, his wife Neilia picked the wrong second to pull onto Delaware Route 7—the second when a tractor-trailer truck was passing, killing her and daughter Naomi, and seriously injuring sons Beau and Hunter. If only she had left the house a moment earlier, or later. “It’s our role as humans to accept the randomness of the universe,” wrote Rabbi Harold Kushner in When Bad Things Happen to Good People. In his new book, The Random Factor, social welfare professor Mark Robert Rank offers examples of “how chance and luck” have shaped history: an arbitrary administrative decision that turned a teenage Adolf Hitler onto a road that led to the Holocaust; a temporary August 9, 1945, cloudiness over Kokura, Japan, that led to the second atomic bomb being diverted to Nagasaki; a Russian submarine officer getting stuck on a conning tower ladder that averted a likely World War III during the Cuban Missile Crisis; an unexpected phone call that led to conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly’s blocking adoption of the Equal Rights Amendment. Chance is built into the fabric of nature, from chance mutations that enable evolution to sporting outcomes to scientific discovery. As Louis Pasteur famously said of accidental scientific happenings, “Chance favors the prepared mind.” And as Bandura stressed, chance forms relationships. He illustrated: Seeking relief from an uninspiring reading assignment, a graduate student departs for the golf links with his friend. They happen to find themselves playing behind a twosome of attractive women golfers. Before long the two twosomes become one foursome and, in the course of events, one of the partners eventually becomes the wife of the graduate golfer. Were it not for this fortuitous constellation of events, it is exceedingly unlikely that their paths would ever have crossed. Different partnerships create different life courses. The graduate student in this particular case happens to be myself. In his autobiography, Bandura delightedly recalled the book editor who came to his lecture on the “Psychology of Chance Encounters and Life Paths,” and who ended up marrying the woman he chanced to sit beside. Careers, too, are deflected by chance events. In the summer of 1978, I was the guest of German social psychologist colleagues for a five-day research retreat near Munich. There I came to know an esteemed American colleague after he chanced to be assigned an adjacent seat. The next January, when he was invited to become a social psychology textbook author, he declined and spontaneously referred the McGraw-Hill psychology editor to me . . . which led to a new authoring career, ultimately including these TalkPsych.com essays. But for each of us, surely the most fortunate sequence of chance events is what produced our existence. Among some 250 million sperm, the one needed to make you won the race and joined that one particular egg. And so it happened for the all the generations in your past. Consider: If even one of your ancestors was formed from a different sperm or egg, or died early, or chanced to meet a different partner or . . . For better or for worse, chance is the great random power that shapes lives and diverts history. Whether we view life’s serendipities as “mere chance” or as guided by the hidden hand of providence, the biblical Ecclesiastes was right: Time and chance happen to us all, spicing our life with unpredictable happenings. With flukes of good luck come unexpected opportunities, and with bad luck the ever-present risk of tragedy. As the French writer Stendhal (quoted by Rank) surmised, “Waiting for God to reveal himself, I believe that his prime minister, Chance, governs this sad world.” David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind. Image credit: SDI Productions/Getty Images ... View more

It’s one of social psychology’s most consistent findings: Those who feel good often do good. Happy people are typically helpful people. Even a temporary mood boost—finding money, a sunny midwinter day, recalling a happy time—has made folks more likely to give money, assist with dropped papers, or volunteer time. We call it the feel-good, do-good phenomenon. The converse is also reliably found: Doing good feels good. When given money, those assigned to spend it on others end up happier than those told to spend it on themselves. People who volunteer typically find increased meaning and happiness. Employees given “prosocial bonuses” to give to charities become happier workers. For those feeling morose, one antidote is, therefore, a daily random act of kindness. Perhaps you too—after donating blood, carrying someone’s groceries, mentoring a student, or even just giving directions to a stranger—have felt an ensuing warm glow? Might the do-good, feel-good effect extend to other virtuous behaviors? Was Aristotle right to suppose that virtuous living supports human flourishing? Malte Mueller/Getty Images Baylor University psychologist-philosopher Michael Prinzing, answering yes, proposed that “acting proenvironmentally... doing something good for the earth” would provide a lift to people’s subjective well-being. To test his presumption, he first sampled more than 7000 daily experiences of 181 people in 14 countries. He texted them 5 times a day, inquiring about their past-hour experiences and their current mood. As he predicted, people who more often engaged in earth-protective or anti-pollution behaviors tended to report better moods—especially immediately following an environmentally-supportive behavior. A follow-up randomized experiment engaged nearly 600 University of North Carolina students. After first reporting on their past-month happiness, the participants were variously asked on the next day to (1) not alter their normal routine (the control condition), (2) “do three good things for yourself” (such as relaxing in a bath or spending time on a hobby), or (3) “do three good things for the planet” (such as walking or biking instead of driving, reducing waste, or picking up litter). The result: When their happiness was reassessed on the third day, the groups who did something good for themselves and something for the environment were happier, while those in the control condition were not. So, “incorporating proenvironmental behavior into individuals’ daily activities increases their SWB [subjective well-being],” concluded Prinzing. Doing so “makes people feel good about themselves.” He added, “People flourish when they seek to cultivate virtue and do good in the world.” Aristotle was right! The moral of the story: Doing good really does feel good. In addition to preserving the earth, going green doubles as a tonic for the human spirit. Virtue carries its own rewards. So go ahead—recycle that waste, pick up that litter, eat that plant-based meal, bike to work—and enjoy the warm glow.  David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind.   ... View more

I can read your mind. I see your worried spirit. I sense that, when assessing today’s U.S. political divide and voter sentiments, you feel astonished at what so many others believe and embrace. If only you, and your preferred candidate, could persuade well-meaning but misinformed people to embrace truth and value decency. If you support an incumbent, you and your kindred souls will want voters to perceive the economy as thriving, crime rates as falling, and leadership as effective. If you support a challenger, you will want voters to see a darker present—a government plagued by corruption, an economy languishing, a society in decline—and to long for someone who can make things great again. So, how to win in 2024? Election triumphs require persuasion, which we social psychologists have long studied. Our experiments confirm ten strategies: Frame messages that speak to your audience’s viewpoint and values. Associate your message with their preexisting perspective. “Don’t mess with Texas” says the effective litter-reducing signage aimed at the leading litterers—18- to 35-year-old macho males. For a business audience, a climate-protecting policy could explain its economic benefit.               Harness the influence of multiple credible sources. Use communicators that your audience will regard as expert, trustworthy, and likable. And better three speakers each making one argument than one person making three arguments. Exploit the power of repetition. Barack Obama understood what experiments have documented—repetition feeds an illusion of truth: “If they just repeat attacks enough and outright lies over and over again . . . people start believing it.” Donald Trump understands: “If you say it enough and keep saying it, they’ll start to believe you.” Even cliches, when repeated, will persist in people’s minds. So will repeated truths, crisply expressed: “The Biden Boom.” Invite public commitments. Once people voice or sign their support, they tend not only to have stood up for what they believe, but also then to believe more fervently and durably in what they have stood up for. Engage emotions. Appeal to the heart. Effective political appeals often elicit both negative emotions (warnings about a scary opponent) and positive emotions (patriotism, pride, and hope). Create visual images. People have much better memory for scenes than words. Even an irrelevant photo—of, say, a thermometer alongside a claim that “Magnesium is the liquid metal inside a thermometer”—can make assertions seem more believable. If you describe falling unemployment or an increasing stock market, portray the spoken words visually, with rising or lowering arm motions. Connect with people’s social identities. Present your candidate as one of “us,” as someone with whom your audience can identify. Inoculate your audience against future opposing arguments. Effective persuasion not only debunks misinformation, it “prebunks” such. It defuses the other side’s case by acknowledging and refuting it, thus preparing people to hear the opponent’s message, and to counterargue. Focus communications on those undecided or disengaged. Don’t waste limited time and resources on those with strong preexisting views. The future is decided by the muddled middle. Prioritize face-to-face appeals. In a mid-twentieth century field experiment, Michigan researchers Samuel Eldersveld and Richard Dodge divided citizens not planning to support an Ann Arbor city charter revision into three groups. Among those exposed to mass media appeals for the revision, 19 percent changed their minds and supported it, as did 45 percent of those who received four supportive mailings, and 75 percent of those visited personally. Finally, and even more important than any of these ten evidence-based persuasion principles, is one more: the power of self-persuasion. Get people to rehearse and verbalize your argument. When supporting a candidate, focus less on the crushing brilliance of your thinking than on what your audience is thinking. Remember: Your aim is not to score argument points, but to persuade. Skilled teachers understand the power of self-education. They guide students not just to be passive information receptacles but active information processors. With rhetorical questions, lab activities, and in-class writing exercises, they get students to glean and verbalize answers for themselves. As a mountain of recent research shows (see here for an animation in which I apply this to student learning), people best remember ideas that they have articulated in their own words. In the final days of the contested 1980 U.S. presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan, 8 points down in a late October Gallup poll, used two memorable and potent rhetorical questions to stimulate voters’ active processing. His presidential debate wrap-up statement began by asking: “Are you better off than you were four years ago? Is it easier for you to go and buy things in the stores than it was four years ago?” This rhetorical device proved so effective (most people privately answered “No”) that he repeated the questions over and again in his campaign’s final week, and won by a stunning 10 percent. So, in the upcoming U.S. presidential debate, the candidates would be wise to pose alternatives, and ask people what they advocate. A U.S. Republican candidate or supporter might invite people to reflect on questions for which majority sentiment favors their position; for example, “Do you favor or oppose a more secure southern border to stop illegal immigration?” And a Democratic candidate or supporter might respond by asking people if they favor or oppose the bipartisan border protection act deep-sixed by Donald Trump, or they might ask, “Do you agree more with Donald Trump that climate change is a ‘hoax’ and that government should support more fossil fuel production, or with Joe Biden that government should prioritize clean energy?” When you know that most folks support your side of an issue, don’t just tell them what you think. Ask them what they think. If someone acknowledges a positive aspect of your candidate, invite them to elaborate. Political “push polls”—negative campaigning and rumormongering in the guise of surveys—similarly attempt to nudge voter thinking. But they often do with obvious guile, as illustrated by a 2013 National Rifle Association pseudo-survey: “Would you knowingly vote to reelect a member of the U.S. House or Senate who supports the Obama gun-ban agenda?" Another possible strategy for using the power of self-persuasion—as a supplement to touting economic numbers—might be to present a simple graph or two and invite people to verbalize what the graph indicates. Here is an example that I (unsuccessfully) proposed to the Barack Obama 2012 reelection campaign: The Economic Facts Do you understand these charts? Which direction has the economy been trending with Obama in the White House? Here’s the last five years of the stock market: What does this show? U.S. Job losses and gains: What do these data indicate? Today, depending on one’s candidate and the relevant evidence, the examples will differ, but the effective principle remains: Don’t just throw words and arguments at people. Follow the Reagan model. Induce people—especially those undecided or uncertain—to think about and to rehearse the gist of your (or your candidate’s) evidence and argument. (For David Myers’ other essays on psychological science and everyday life, visit TalkPsych.com or check out his new essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind. Follow him on X: @davidgmyers.)     ... View more

Macmillan Learning is honored to sponsor the PsychSessions podcast, a platform dedicated to insightful conversations about teaching and psychology. Today, we celebrate a monumental milestone—the 200th episode of the flagship series, PsychSessions: Conversations About Teaching N' Stuff. This episode features special guest host Chris Cardone as she joins Garth Neufeld to interview the esteemed social psychologist and author, Elliot Aronson. Listen here! Click here to receive a free PsychSessions discussion guide for this episode!      ... View more

As polite people, we know better than to raise political, religious, or “culture war” topics with acquaintances who we expect will disagree. Sometimes that is prudent. Rather than risk discomfiting disagreement with family members we love—and whose minds we are not going to change—we steer clear of discussing transgender kids, climate change, and the Trump trials. Or we may just dread confrontation, perhaps as an emotional expression of our natural loss aversion. We prioritize not risking pain over potential positive gain. Yet when we push beyond our comfort zone, by engaging those who differ, the outcome is often unexpectedly positive. Being too pessimistic about meaningful dialogue across divides, we avoid such—and thus miss out on opportunities to connect and to learn. That’s the conclusion of new research by Kristina Wald, Michael Kardas, and Nicholas Epley. Their experiments build on earlier studies in which Epley and others induced people to reach out to strangers. Did striking up a conversation with a stranger feel a tad awkward? Yes, but the typical outcome was surprisingly positive, leaving both conversationalists feeling happier. Their new experiments first confirmed that people have low expectations of discussion with someone who embraces a differing view of abortion, same-sex marriage, immigration policy, etc. People therefore avoid conversing with those of an opposing view. Their second experiment matched people with someone of a kindred or opposing view on some hot topic. During a 10-minute discussion, each shared their position, why it was important to them, and why they felt as they did. The result: People expected they would dislike the conversation, yet afterward most felt much better about it than they had expected. In a third experiment, some participants experienced a video call with an agreeing or disagreeing partner. Other participants recorded and exchanged monologues explaining their respective views. Again, the relational two-way conversation proved surprisingly satisfying. Listening to a monologue less so. So why do we miscalculate the typically positive results of dialogue across differences? For at least three reasons, suggest Wald and colleagues: Focus on differences: We often underestimate our common ground, thanks to our acute sensitivity to how we differ from others. Civility: We seek to make everyday conversation a polite exchange, but fail to fully anticipate our civility when imagining a difficult conversation. Confirmation bias: By avoiding conversations about disagreements, we “miss having the very conversations” that could better inform our expectations. In other experiments, James Dungan and Epley found that roommates and romantic partners were similarly too pessimistic about the outcomes of hard conversations. Their conclusion: “Misunderstanding how positively others would respond to an honest conversation about a problematic relationship issue may leave people overly reluctant to have the kinds of difficult conversations that are important for their relationships to thrive.” The bottom line: We needlessly avoid constructive conversations with friends, fellow students, or family members. To our collective detriment, we isolate ourselves in silos with like-minded others. “People segregate into intellectually cohesive teams, which are always dumber than intellectually diverse teams,” notes David Brooks. Communication experts advise us on how to optimize dialogue across differences: Before offering your own view, listen to and reflect what the other is saying, noting points of agreement and what you’ve learned. Acknowledge the other’s admirable motives. Such are among the aims of organizations such as Braver Angels, which have engaged tens of thousands of partisan “red” and “blue” Americans in civil conversation: “We state our views freely and fully, without fear. We treat people who disagree with us with honesty, dignity and respect.” At the end of the process, “97% of Braver Angels participants say they found common ground with someone across the divide.” Braver Angels workshop participants seek to bridge their divide. “What’s interesting about our work isn’t that talking to folks you disagree with turns out well,” Epley tells me. That much they already knew, from the many confirmations of Gordon Allport’s intergroup contact hypothesis, in which equal status contact reduces prejudice. “What’s interesting is that people’s expectations are overly pessimistic, on average, and that has the potential to keep us overly segregated.” Martin Luther King, Jr., understood. His 1962 remarks at Cornell College provide an epigraph for the new Wald-Kardas-Epley research: [People] hate each other because they fear each other. They fear each other because they don’t know each other, and they don’t know each other because they don’t communicate with each other, and they don’t communicate with each other because they are separated from each other. And God grant that something will happen to open channels of communication. David Myers, a Hope College social psychologist, authors psychology textbooks and trade books, including his recent essay collection, How Do We Know Ourselves? Curiosities and Marvels of the Human Mind. ... View more