The Science of Belief: Identify Perceptions of Harm

Illustration by Ailadi.

Why do some people support policies that limit asylum seekers’ opportunity to seek refuge in another community? How is it that people can have such radically different perspectives on solutions for protecting refugees? How people think and act toward issues is influenced by their gut intuitions or emotional reactions (Haidt, 2012; Gray & Schein, 2016; Kahneman, 2011).

If you’ve been following this series, you know that emotions shape the way people form judgments and engage with social issues and possible solutions. People do not objectively weigh the pros and cons of politicized issues — like refugee crises, racial inequity or climate change–– and come to a logical conclusion. They have emotional reactions to information that they use post hoc reasoning to justify, even if their reasoning is scientifically and objectively unsound (Haidt, 2012).

If, for example, someone feels that refugees pose a threat to their community, regardless of what data and history show, they will have a negative reaction to information regarding refugees and look for reasons to justify their perspective.

Kurt Gray, professor of social psychology at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and Chelsea Schein, a postdoctoral fellow at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, argue that people make rapid judgments based on their perceptions of harm. Harm is a universal value that informs people’s gut emotional reactions to information. If people perceive harm they will develop justifications for their position (Gray and Shein, 2016).

We can see this play out in the controversial United States travel ban that bars travelers from six predominantly Muslim nations and refugees fleeing war in Syria from entering the country. In the United States, liberals tend to take a globalist perspective–they support open borders and are in favor of immigrants preserving their native cultures rather than assimilating. This globalist perspective reflects the values that liberals tend to have — care and fairness (Graham et al., 2009; Haidt, 2012; Haidt, 2016). Globalists describe the ban as xenophobic and discriminatory. The ban is a violation of their values and is seen as harmful to immigrants, refugees, and the Muslim community. These people see protection for those fleeing violence and war as central to American values.

In the United States, conservatives tend to have a nationalist perspective, a perspective that tracks with the values of conservatives — ingroup loyalty, respect for authority, and purity (Graham et al., 2009; Haidt, 2012; Haidt, 2016). These values manifest as authoritarian, supporting closed borders, strict immigration, and cultural assimilation. Nationalists see immigration as harmful, threatening their way of life, their communities and their country. Ultimately, they seek to protect themselves and their communities from violence.

While it can seem like people with perspectives different than yours just don’t get it or are perhaps evil, the work of Gray and Schein suggests that everyone believes they are acting in their best interest, while protecting their loved ones and communities. “The stories people cite for the ban’s immorality (or morality) are cases of harm. Those [who are] pro-ban cite cases of terrorists who have harmed the American people; anti-ban people cite cases where people suffer from being denied entry,” said Gray in an interview with us.

Theirs isn’t the only research that confirms that negative attitudes toward refugees and asylum seekers are connected to perceived harm. Research on attitudes of Australia, Ireland, and United States citizens suggests that those who hold prejudice cite concerns over competition for resources, scarce jobs, their country’s economic stability, and health threats, as well as symbolic threat such as ethnic customs and traditions that may impede upon existing norms, customs, and values (McKay and Pittam 1993; Schweitzer et al., 2005; Esses et al., 2001). Prejudice toward refugees, then, is also rooted in perceived harm or threat to their community. People who hold these beliefs may have negative gut reactions to refugees and note economic, health, and cultural threats as justification.

We have to understand where our target communities perceive harm to develop communications that don’t trigger their negative gut reactions.

This is true across cultures. For example, sociologists Elizabeth Heger Boyle and Kristen Carnone-Lopez (2006) examined the explanations 13,195 African women gave for opposing female genital mutilation (FGM) in the Central African Republic, Egypt, Kenya, Mali, and Sudan. They wanted to see if the reasons provided reflected the dominant arguments made by international organizations and movements against FGC — that it poses medical risks and threatens women’s rights — or if their reasons were rooted in cultural norms, traditions, and taboos. They surveyed women who had and had not been circumcised. Internationally, FGC opponents cite and mobilize around women’s rights and medical arguments. However, among these African women, the majority said they were against the practice because it was a bad tradition (46%), that it is against their religion (27%) and medical complications (28%). Of the women who had been circumcised, 40% cited medical complications as a reason for being against FGC, as compared to 17% of non-circumcised women.

This difference suggests personal experience shapes perceptions of harm. Where a western perspective sees harm to women’s status and health, these women note potential harm to their cultural traditions and, for some, medical complications. The scholars theorize that these women do not cite the dominant western argument for women’s rights because taking that argument may threaten cultural norms and gender relations valued in their communities. If you were working in these African regions to shift FGC practices, starting with perceptions and norms around tradition and using neutral medical arguments would be a more productive way to craft your argument.

Now You Try:

To do the work of shifting beliefs to increase support for refugees, it is critical that we understand where our target audience perceives harm, acknowledge it, then use communication that resonates with their beliefs to mitigate their concern. Here’s an exercise to help you begin to incorporate this insight into your work:

Choose a politicized issue that you care about.

1. What is the issue?
2. What are the arguments for or against that issue? What motivates your beliefs? Are they rooted in alleviating or preventing harm?
3. What happens when you hear an argument for the other side? Do you get a knot in your stomach? Do you feel emotional conflict?
4. Now let’s empathize with those on the other side. What do you think motivates their beliefs? What harm might they perceive?
5. How can you acknowledge their feelings, while providing a counter narrative that corrects their false beliefs? Use your new framing skills to tell them how the issue aligns with their values.

Try This: As you are thinking through how to make your case, write out all potential arguments. Identify how those arguments are rooted in your audience’s perceptions of harm. Be empathetic with your audience! Craft your message in a way that does not tell them they are wrong, but corrects their misperceptions. Tell stories about refugees and solutions that break their assumptions and show that their feelings of threat and harm are misguided.

Pro tip: If you are working to correct a stereotype or misperception, it is critical that you do not make them feel stupid for having the initial belief. When trying to replace one belief with another, acknowledge that you can see why they would think that and then correct with stories that break stereotypes while not threatening their values.

In an effort to move past communication strategies that simply “raise awareness” of an issue, the UN Refugee Agency and the University of Florida partnered to better understand how science can connect individuals with calls to actions that will result in lasting difference on the issues that matter most.

This series provides academic insights, theory and hands-on exercises that will help you apply science to improve communications.

This research project shares theory and science that helps us understand how people think and act, and is designed to help you incorporate those insights into your work. The exploration is divided into three articles:

• Use Values and Worldviews to Build Bridges
• Identify Perceptions of Harm
• Move Beyond “Us” and “Them” to “We”

Each article theme has robust empirical and theoretical findings and debates. We’ve sought to include the works of prominent scholars to get you started, and hope to spark your desire for further exploration.

Thank you to Eugenia Blaubach for editorial support on this series.

References

Boyle, Elizabeth Heger, and Kristin Carbone-Lopez. “Movement frames and African women’s explanations for opposing female genital cutting.” International journal of comparative sociology 47.6 (2006): 435–465.

Esses, Victoria M., et al. “The immigration dilemma: The role of perceived group competition, ethnic prejudice, and national identity.” Journal of Social issues 57.3 (2001): 389–412

Gray, Kurt, and Chelsea Schein. “No absolutism here: Harm predicts moral judgment 30× better than disgust — Commentary on Scott, Inbar, & Rozin (2016).” Perspectives on Psychological Science 11.3 (2016): 325–329

Graham, Jesse, Jonathan Haidt, and Brian A. Nosek. “Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations.” Journal of personality and social psychology 96.5 (2009): 1029

Haidt, Jonathan. The righteous mind: Why good people are divided by politics and religion. Vintage, 2012.

Haidt, J. (2016). When and why nationalism beats globalism. Policy: A Journal of Public Policy and Ideas, 32(3), 46.

Kahneman (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

McKay, Susan, and Jeffery Pittam. “Determinants of Anglo-Australian stereotypes of the Vietnamese in Australia.” Australian Journal of Psychology45.1 (1993): 17–23

Pedersen, Anne, et al. “Attitudes toward Indigenous Australians and asylum seekers: The role of false beliefs and other social-psychological variables.” Australian Psychologist40.3 (2005): 170–178.

Schweitzer, Robert, et al. “Attitudes towards refugees: The dark side of prejudice in Australia.” Australian Journal of Psychology 57.3 (2005): 170–179.

Turoy‐Smith, Katrine M., Robert Kane, and Anne Pedersen. “The willingness of a society to act on behalf of Indigenous Australians and refugees: The role of contact, intergroup anxiety, prejudice, and support for legislative change.” Journal of Applied Social Psychology 43.S2 (2013)