Lie Once is Just a Lie But a Lie Repeated 1000 Times Seems True-How Liars Create Illusion of Truth-BBC-Tom Stafford-For Argument’s Sake-Evidence Reason Changes Minds-plus Sunday MHVille Weekly Recap
“The University of Sheffield is a public research university in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England,” per left-leaning Wikipedia. “Tom [Stafford] is a Lecturer in Psychology and Cognitive Science for the Department of Psychology, University of Sheffield, UK. He is the co-author of the bestselling popular science book Mind Hacks and writes for the award-winning blog Mind Hacks which reports on psychology and neuroscience,” according to the left-leaning BBC. In his self-published ebook: “For Argument’s Sake: Evidence That Reason Can Change Minds” “Tom Stafford argues against the common belief that humans are primarily irrational and swayed by emotion, presenting evidence from cognitive psychology and neuroscience demonstrating that reasoned arguments can indeed effectively change people’s opinions and beliefs, even on deeply held convictions; challenging the idea that persuasion is solely driven by bias and heuristics, the book analyzes classic experiments and recent research to highlight the power of logical reasoning in influencing attitudes and behavior,” per left-leaning Google’s AI powered Gemini. MHProNews has previously referenced Stafford’s important research and thinking. Now with early voting underway, the general election for 2024 less than 3 weeks out, and evidence of doublethink, doublespeak, and seemingly Orwellian methods of influence at work in and beyond MHVille, it seems like an appropriate time to review what popular psychology professor Stafford has to say on the headline topics. Readers can then better discern how these insights may impact you, those you know, and potentially millions of others.
If the battle to implement already existing federal laws that are beneficial to modern HUD Code manufactured homes were easy and clear cut, it should be apparent that by the end of the first decade of the 21st century that manufactured housing should have recovered from the financing and other woes that hit the industry years earlier. But that has obviously not been the case. So, MHProNews continues to probe the various causes, issues, and potential cures from a range of sources and disciplines and then applies it to our profession. The role that psychology and mass manipulation can play is an issue that merits consideration.
It should be noted that there can be more to so-called “illusory truth” than merely lying or paltering repeatedly. For instance, MHProNews and our pre-election 2024 series on the Patch have explored the use of Illusory Truth can involve people of influence standing by some person or group that is spreading half-truths, paltering, or big lies.
In Part I is the brief from Stafford’s Mind Hacks post.
In Part II is a review of Stafford insightful article for the BBC, which is as arguably as relevant today as it was when it was first published approaching a decade ago.
Part III includes another look at the words credited to infamous Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels: “A lie told once remains a lie but a lie told a thousand times becomes the truth” Some additional insights from Gemini is included.
Part IV is our Sunday weekly headlines in review section. The popular postscript for today is a look at a statement made to MHProNews from the author of a manufactured housing critical remark regarding the Manufactured Housing Institute (MHI).
As a teaser, let’s not that an important part of Stafford’s researched contention is hopeful for both our profession and for America or more broadly.
With that plan of action for these source-credited insights and analysis, let’s begin.
Part I – According to the site Mind Hacks which self-describes as “Neuroscience and psychology news and views.”
For argument’s sake
I have (self) published an ebook For argument’s sake: evidence that reason can change minds. It is the collection of two essays that were originally published on Contributoria and The Conversation. I have revised and expanded these, and added a guide to further reading on the topic. There are bespoke illustrations inspired by Goya (of owls), and I’ve added an introduction about why I think psychologists and journalists both love stories that we’re irrational creatures incapable of responding to reasoned argument. Here’s something from the book description:
Are we irrational creatures, swayed by emotion and entrenched biases? Modern psychology and neuroscience are often reported as showing that we can’t overcome our prejudices and selfish motivations. Challenging this view, cognitive scientist Tom Stafford looks at the actual evidence. Re-analysing classic experiments on persuasion, as well as summarising more recent research into how arguments change minds, he shows why persuasion by reason alone can be a powerful force.
All in, it’s close to 7000 words and available from Amazon and Smashwords now.”
MHProNews notes for our U.S. readers, who are typically the big majority of our audience, should note that the above is British English, which has some subtle changes in spelling.
Note too that per the University of Sheffield Psychology Department webpage, Stafford has authored or collaborated in several “Featured publications” including books, scholarly journal and other articles.
Speaking of articles, in this publication’s editorial view, one of the key lines in the following from Stafford is this: “if you repeat a lie often enough it [seemingly] becomes the truth” which “everyone from advertisers to politicians are taking advantage of this foible of human psychology.” Further below MHProNews will consider these points and others as it relates to the woes besetting the dramatically diminished manufactured housing industry in the 21st century, and the U.S. more broadly. Let’s note that while our focus are in America and MHVille, these principles outlined by Stafford clearly apply to scores of nations around the globe.
26 October 2016 | Tom Stafford | Features correspondent
Repetition makes a fact seem more true, regardless of whether it is or not. Understanding this effect can help you avoid falling for propaganda, says psychologist Tom Stafford.
“Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth”, is a law of propaganda often attributed to the Nazi Joseph Goebbels. Among psychologists something like this known as the “illusion of truth” effect. Here’s how a typical experiment on the effect works: participants rate how true trivia items are, things like “A prune is a dried plum”. Sometimes these items are true (like that one), but sometimes participants see a parallel version which isn’t true (something like “A date is a dried plum”).
After a break – of minutes or even weeks – the participants do the procedure again, but this time some of the items they rate are new, and some they saw before in the first phase. The key finding is that people tend to rate items they’ve seen before as more likely to be true, regardless of whether they are true or not, and seemingly for the sole reason that they are more familiar.
So, here, captured in the lab, seems to be the source for the saying that if you repeat a lie often enough it becomes the truth. And if you look around yourself, you may start to think that everyone from advertisers to politicians are taking advantage of this foible of human psychology.
But a reliable effect in the lab isn’t necessarily an important effect on people’s real-world beliefs. If you really could make a lie sound true by repetition, there’d be no need for all the other techniques of persuasion.
One obstacle is what you already know. Even if a lie sounds plausible, why would you set what you know aside just because you heard the lie repeatedly?
Recently, a team led by Lisa Fazio of Vanderbilt University set out to test how the illusion of truth effect interacts with our prior knowledge. Would it affect our existing knowledge? They used paired true and un-true statements, but also split their items according to how likely participants were to know the truth (so “The Pacific Ocean is the largest ocean on Earth” is an example of a “known” items, which also happens to be true, and “The Atlantic Ocean is the largest ocean on Earth” is an un-true item, for which people are likely to know the actual truth).
Their results show that the illusion of truth effect worked just as strongly for known as for unknown items, suggesting that prior knowledge won’t prevent repetition from swaying our judgements of plausibility.
To cover all bases, the researchers performed one study in which the participants were asked to rate how true each statement seemed on a six-point scale, and one where they just categorised each fact as “true” or “false”. Repetition pushed the average item up the six-point scale, and increased the odds that a statement would be categorised as true. For statements that were actually fact or fiction, known or unknown, repetition made them all seem more believable.
At first this looks like bad news for human rationality, but – and I can’t emphasise this strongly enough – when interpreting psychological science, you have to look at the actual numbers.
What Fazio and colleagues actually found, is that the biggest influence on whether a statement was judged to be true was… whether it actually was true. The repetition effect couldn’t mask the truth. With or without repetition, people were still more likely to believe the actual facts as opposed to the lies.
This shows something fundamental about how we update our beliefs – repetition has a power to make things sound more true, even when we know differently, but it doesn’t over-ride that knowledge
The next question has to be, why might that be? The answer is to do with the effort it takes to being rigidly logical about every piece of information you hear. If every time you heard something you assessed it against everything you already knew, you’d still be thinking about breakfast at supper-time. Because we need to make quick judgements, we adopt shortcuts – heuristics which are right more often than wrong. Relying on how often you’ve heard something to judge how truthful something feels is just one strategy. Any universe where truth gets repeated more often than lies, even if only 51% vs 49% will be one where this is a quick and dirty rule for judging facts.
If repetition was the only thing that influenced what we believed we’d be in trouble, but it isn’t. We can all bring to bear more extensive powers of reasoning, but we need to recognise they are a limited resource. Our minds are prey to the illusion of truth effect because our instinct is to use short-cuts in judging how plausible something is. Often this works. Sometimes it is misleading.
Once we know about the effect we can guard against it. Part of this is double-checking why we believe what we do – if something sounds plausible is it because it really is true, or have we just been told that repeatedly? This is why scholars are so mad about providing references – so we can track the origin on any claim, rather than having to take it on faith.
But part of guarding against the illusion is the obligation it puts on us to stop repeating falsehoods. We live in a world where the facts matter, and should matter. If you repeat things without bothering to check if they are true, you are helping to make a world where lies and truth are easier to confuse. So, please, think before you repeat.
Tom Stafford’s ebook on when and how rational argument can change minds is out now. If you have an everyday psychological phenomenon you’d like to see written about in these columns please get in touch with @tomstafford on Twitter, or ideas@idiolect.org.uk.
Part III – Additional Information with More MHProNews Analysis and Commentary
1) A few pull quotes from the above (Parts I and II) by Stafford are useful. In no particular order of importance are the following.
2)
“Are we irrational creatures, swayed by emotion and entrenched biases? …Re-analysing classic experiments on persuasion, as well as summarising more recent research into how arguments change minds, he shows why persuasion by reason alone can be a powerful force.”
“…a team led by Lisa Fazio of Vanderbilt University set out to test how the illusion of truth effect interacts with our prior knowledge…Their results show that the illusion of truth effect worked just as strongly for known as for unknown items, suggesting that prior knowledge won’t prevent repetition from swaying our judgements of plausibility.”
“Because we need to make quick judgements, we adopt shortcuts…” for judging what is or isn’t true.”
“We can all bring to bear more extensive powers of reasoning, but we need to recognise they are a limited resource. Our minds are prey to the illusion of truth effect because our instinct is to use short-cuts in judging how plausible something is. Often this works. Sometimes it is misleading.”
“Once we know about the effect we can guard against it. Part of this is double-checking why we believe what we do “
“But part of guarding against the illusion is the obligation it puts on us to stop repeating falsehoods.”
3) MHProNews has previously reported and unpacked what is known as the Illusory Truth Effect, which is for most intents and purposes much in keeping with what Professor Stafford has shared in the items referenced above.
4) So, without diminishing Stafford’s important contributions to this field of modern human interactions, it is fair to say that he is not alone in his thinking. Meaning, there is hope for overcoming clever and often repeated half-truths, paltering, deception and misdirection.
Per Professor Stafford, a “Re-analysing classic experiments on persuasion, as well as summarising more recent research into how arguments change minds, he shows why persuasion by reason alone can be a powerful force.” That is a reasonable description of what MHProNews, our MHLivingNews sister site and the Manufactured Housing Association for Regulatory Reform have been doing for years. By using facts, reason, and connecting the dots on what are often obvious realities that MHI’s corporate and association insiders downplay or ignore, the truth begins to shine through.
With that ongoing search for truth in mind, for a proper vs. faux understanding of reality, and how action based on reality vs. propaganda is a superior course of action in mind, next up are the headlines for the week in review.
Don’t miss today’s postscript. It offers a fresh, first-time reported reality check involving MHI and a recent news report.
With no further adieu, here are the headlines for the week that was from 10.13 to 10.20.2024.
For all of the Patch posts by MHProNews’ L. A. “Tony” Kovach covering affordable housing, manufactured homes, economic, social, and political issues go to this link here.
What’s New on the Daily Business News on MHProNews
1) Erik Engquist is the senior managing editor for The Real Deal (TRD). In an email to MHProNews he said the following.
2) On Tue, Oct 15, 2024 at 9:03 PM Erik Engquist <@therealdeal.com> wrote:
Sorry for the late reply. No, I did not hear from MHI.
Best,
Erik
3) The inquiry sent to him which he responded to was as follows.
On Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 9:45 AM L. A. Tony Kovach <latonyk@gmail.com> wrote:
Erik,
We are the largest and most read trade media serving the HUD Code manufactured home industry. Your recent article came to my attention, I hoped to reach out sooner, but today is the day.
5) So there per TRD’s Engquist no reply from MHI. His response may also be construed to include an MHI linked state association, but that was left unstated, so, is subject to interpretation or follow up. MHProNews has periodically reached out to media and public officials over the course of years to see what, if any, steps MHI might have taken in keeping with Tim William’s/21st Mortgage and prior MHI chairman about the following.
6) MHProNews and our MHLivingNews sister site has systematically been exploring the realities vs. the statements and claims of MHI and several substantial MHI linked companies for years. A common, but troubling, outcome of those years of fact checks and reports with analysis has been this. Words or ideas are expressed which may on the surface appear to be true or may even be partially or largely true. The question then becomes, what has that organization or professional done with their own statement or remarks? How do those statements compare to what MHI has said? Do they agree or disagree? If there are disconnects, what seems to prevail?
7) There are multiple acid tests for manufactured housing industry ‘leadership.’ Among them? In no particular order of importance are the following.
National Production Totals. The RV industry, the automotive industry, the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and MHARR all produce monthly reports made available to the public. Why is that that MHI feels that they can produce a member-only report on manufactured housing production? Don’t they claim on their home page that they are elevating manufactured housing and seek to expand attainable home ownership? For MHI, arguably the ‘Big Lie” is that they represent “all segments” of the industry. A more accurate phrasing is that they have members from a broad spectrum of the industry, but that they in fact are only representing the interests of consolidators of the industry. Shame on and scorn are merited for all involved for spreading the big lie that MHI cares about consumers or independents, other than as tools in their consolidators game. Manufactured housing is operating at about 28 percent of the level it did in the late 1990s. See the Daily Business News items linked above in the recap, several of which unpack those facts with analysis.
Access to more competitive lending. Perhaps firms like 21st Mortgage Corp and Vanderbilt Mortage and Finance (VMF) think they will lose out on financing if lower cost lending is made available. Perhaps, said Warren Buffett, when asked about that very point. But for what it’s worth, this writer would opine that when lower cost lending is available, many more qualified buyers gain interest. There are more buyers, not fewer buyers. Among those more buyers are more that won’t qualify for that lower cost lending, and so there will still be the need for higher cost loans too for those who don’t qualify for the best rates. Given that many lenders in MHVille are vertically integrated, there ‘concerns’ may be understandable, but they are also arguably misguided. How so? For example. In the automotive world, there are not fewer buy here, pay here “dealers” just because there are auto retailers who offer amazing financing terms to their customers. It is foolish to think that the only, or more precisely, the more common lending, offered to manufactured home customers are only to those who get 21st-VMF style lending and terms. Yes, they may offer some better rates, but not what would likely be available if DTS enabled chattel and other loan programs were more commonly promoted. Companies that make money from financing would still be making money from financing. That is the lesson of the automotive world. While it isn’t apples to apples, there are good reasons to think that would apply to manufactured housing, because when so-called Lonnie Dealers were more common (pre-Dodd-Frank) in MHVille, there was arguably a more robust landscape for our industry, as was the case in the late 1990s. It is discriminatory to continue to punish manufactured housing for sins from roughly 25 years ago as it would be to punish the site-built housing industry for the sins for the run-up to the housing and financial crisis of 2008. It is time to wake up, smell the coffee, and embrace the potential reality made possible by the Housing and Economic Recovery Act of 2008. That MHI is still, essentially subverting DTS, per Doug Ryan, MHARR and others, including an essential admission to that by Williams/21st at MHI, is self-limiting the manufactured home industry’s potential. Shame on all who are shooting the industry’s potential in the foot through such short-sighted thinking and behavior.
Doing what is necessary to achieve more robust developing instead of celebrating alack of development. That troubling notion is carefully unpacked in the report linked here. Imagine if the multi-family housing industry celebrated a lack of development? Yet that is what prominent MHI members like ELS, Sun, Flagship, “Frank and Dave” and others have done for years. MHI’s ‘developing seminars’ are best seen in the light of statistics and window dressing. It is like their awards programs. Ever con artist seems to offer something, and MHI seems to do similarly.
8) MHProNews, citing a now retired state association executive, said years ago that the true role of an umbrella style trade group can be boiled down to three points and the acronym, P.E.P. Protect. Educate. Promote. That was 2017. Industry pros who are properly informed know that we have good laws that are going under-enforced, or have even been twisted into something that was never intended.
9) Not long after MHARR launched their website they published the following study.
10) What is the big lie in manufactured housing? There are more than one, but among them certainly is that MHI is working for all segments of the industry. That’s absurd – and MHProNews – citing MHI award winner Marty Lavin, former MHI member Neal Haney, MHARR, and others – have been using facts and evidence to demonstrate just how deceptive and misleading MHI’s leadership appears to be. The fact that they won’t defend their stance in a public discussion only underscores the weakness of their behaviors.
11) A key purpose of media, including trade media, is supposed to be to hold the powerful to account. Some in MHVille and beyond no doubt hate that MHProNews keeps bringing these issues up. The solution is simple. MHI leaders should: Start. Doing. Your. Jobs. Properly.
The good news? Evidence changes people’s minds. Who says? Professor Tom Stafford at Sheffield University. Persistence can pay. The new year for MHProNews is underway. Stay tuned.
“There are many kinds of journalism, but at the heart of their constitutional responsibilities, journalists are in the business of monitoring and keeping a check on people and institutions in power.” Trade media can and should be a ‘cheer leader’ when it is appropriate to do so. But authentic trade media also holds the powers that be to account. Who says? The American Press Institute.
Going back to last week: we did none of this alone. We benefited, and still benefit, from the input of readers and writers from across the spectrum. We have been blessed by God in countless way. We are not resting on our laurels. There is work to be done. While we pause to recall the 15 years that have come and gone in blink of an eye, we are also looking ahead. Make good choices. If you’ve made some bad ones, and we have all been there, done that, and have a pile of t-shirts to prove it, don’t just accept the past problem. Dust yourself off. Learn the lessons of the past. Prepare for what may be a challenging future, but it is the only future we are going to be given. Let’s work to make the best of it. With God’s help, let’s make the best years the ones that are to come. Let’s start that job by Swamping the Vote. ###
My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my term. My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best… pic.twitter.com/x8DnvuImJV
Some think that Biden is at times coyly giving Kamala the shiv, because she worked to depose him from the Democratic Party nomination. While that is speculative, it is plausible. Biden repeatedly said he didn’t want to step down.
We keep evolving. ICYMI, or need to see the latest, check this link out.
Our son has grown quite a bit since this 12.2019 photo. All on Capitol Hill were welcoming and interested in our manufactured housing industry related concerns. But Congressman Al Green’s office was tremendous in their hospitality. Our son’s hand is on a package that included the Constitution of the United States, bottled water, and other goodies.
Tony earned a journalism scholarship and earned numerous awards in history and in manufactured housing.
For example, he earned the prestigious Lottinville Award in history from the University of Oklahoma, where he studied history and business management. He’s a managing member and co-founder of LifeStyle Factory Homes, LLC, the parent company to MHProNews, and MHLivingNews.com.
This article reflects the LLC’s and/or the writer’s position and may or may not reflect the views of sponsors or supporters.
