Backfire effect vs Reactance

[sparky]

I was listening to the latest episode of the You Are Not So Smart podcast, episode 237 on the psychological phenomenon called "reactance." The host, David McRaney, describes the effect starting at ~7:20 to ~12 minutes in the podcast, but here's his basic definition:

An innate bodily, automatic visceral response to the perceived threat to one's behavioral freedom. You may have felt this quite a bit as a teenager when you felt like your parents were telling you what to do, telling you how to live, and so you pushed away, you recoiled, you rebelled. It's the essence of that "Unhand me, you fools!" feeling, when we feel that rebellious urge bubbling up inside us, when we get the sense that our agency has been lost or is being reduced in some way.

McRaney and Michèle Belot, the social scientist he's interviewing, go on to explain that when reactance is generated, people respond by trying to remove themselves from the situation, not listening, and doing whatever they can to maintain a feeling of agency and autonomy over whatever choice they feel is being threatened. For example, therapists are trained to avoid generating reactance because often the patient will double down on the behavior they are trying to change in the first place. Listening to this podcast made me think of a couple of things:

• In the post Mormon space, there are often warnings about another psychological phenomenon, the "backfire effect," where people actually deepen their beliefs when presented with information that contradicts them. This is probably sometimes the case, but I wonder whether this effect is sometimes conflated with reactance in mixed faith situations. If the believing spouse feels that they are being forced to change in some way, they may double down on the behaviors that they feel are being threatened, not necessarily the beliefs. It's a subtle but I think important distinction, because reactance can be minimized by doing whatever you can to ensure that your partner still feels some sense of control over their behavior.

• Secondly, I'm sure we've all seen the disturbing videos of church leaders redefining "agency" and telling youth that they literally have no choice over whether to serve a mission. Don't pray about it, you gave up your "free agency" when you were baptized and it has been replaced by a doctrine invented by David Bednar: "moral agency" or "representative agency." Basically by being baptized at age 8 you have given up your personal decisions, and must do what God (i.e. old white male church leaders) tells you to. The theory of reactance suggests that this approach will backfire and cause even more youth to choose not to go.

[Angel]

I was listening to the latest episode of the You Are Not So Smart podcast, episode 237 on the psychological phenomenon called "reactance." The host, David McRaney, describes the effect starting at ~7:20 to ~12 minutes in the podcast, but here's his basic definition:

An innate bodily, automatic visceral response to the perceived threat to one's behavioral freedom. You may have felt this quite a bit as a teenager when you felt like your parents were telling you what to do, telling you how to live, and so you pushed away, you recoiled, you rebelled. It's the essence of that "Unhand me, you fools!" feeling, when we feel that rebellious urge bubbling up inside us, when we get the sense that our agency has been lost or is being reduced in some way.

McRaney and Michèle Belot, the social scientist he's interviewing, go on to explain that when reactance is generated, people respond by trying to remove themselves from the situation, not listening, and doing whatever they can to maintain a feeling of agency and autonomy over whatever choice they feel is being threatened. For example, therapists are trained to avoid generating reactance because often the patient will double down on the behavior they are trying to change in the first place. Listening to this podcast made me think of a couple of things:

• In the post Mormon space, there are often warnings about another psychological phenomenon, the "backfire effect," where people actually deepen their beliefs when presented with information that contradicts them. This is probably sometimes the case, but I wonder whether this effect is sometimes conflated with reactance in mixed faith situations. If the believing spouse feels that they are being forced to change in some way, they may double down on the behaviors that they feel are being threatened, not necessarily the beliefs. It's a subtle but I think important distinction, because reactance can be minimized by doing whatever you can to ensure that your partner still feels some sense of control over their behavior.

• Secondly, I'm sure we've all seen the disturbing videos of church leaders redefining "agency" and telling youth that they literally have no choice over whether to serve a mission. Don't pray about it, you gave up your "free agency" when you were baptized and it has been replaced by a doctrine invented by David Bednar: "moral agency" or "representative agency." Basically by being baptized at age 8 you have given up your personal decisions, and must do what God (i.e. old white male church leaders) tells you to. The theory of reactance suggests that this approach will backfire and cause even more youth to choose not to go.

I agree, "controlling" doesn't work to change anyone's views. The opposite of controlling is humble, flexible, subdued.

In covert hypnosis "The hypnotist gains rapport[13][14] with the listener(s) and the hypnotist maintains psychological congruency[15] (the act of truly acting towards your goals without hesitation[clarification needed]), both linguistically and in one's nonverbal communication. As the subject listens while feeling a psychological connection with the hypnotist and the hypnotist displaying behaviors such as confidence and understanding,[13] the hypnotist then presents linguistic data in the form of metaphor:"

You are feeling sleepy, here, let me lull you into comfortable gentle submission with my kind loving voice...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_hypnosis

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undue_influence

Prolonged eye-contact and other non-verbal techniques
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculesics

Deep canvassing - use questions, how are you doing? How is your family?
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/p ... s-1028034/

For those who served as bishop -were you taught these techniques in your training? Told to look people in the eye, compliment, tell them you are confident in them, tell them you understand them etc. while gazing into their eyes?

Call it "grooming" - debate ethical or unethical - but learn tactics that have been used on you.. not sure if it's good to use them on others, but... just how humans work.

[wtfluff]

Mr. McRaney also has some older episodes of his podcast about The Backfire Effect if anyone want's further info on that.