In 2016, in the midst of a devastating measles outbreak, California decided to
repeal the philosophical exemption to vaccines, which allows parents to opt out of required childhood vaccines because of “personal beliefs.”
Soon after that law went into effect, the
number of exemptions for medical reasons suddenly soared. Some
have argued that
the philosophical exemption ban may have in some ways made matters
worse, since school administrators are powerless against medical
exemptions, but may have had more room to question philosophical
exemptions.
Responding to complex social issues such as the anti-vaccine movement
requires a full view of human behavior and a solid understanding of
what it really takes to change minds. We need to let go of the idea that
we can just strong-arm people into complying. Policymakers must
understand that changing attitudes and behaviors requires a
comprehensive approach that doesn’t rely exclusively on punitive
measures alone.
These kinds of laws should be familiar to anyone who has followed the
evolution of the response to anti-vaxxers in the US and elsewhere.
Last year,
France, Italy, and Germany all announced new laws and fines that in each case made more vaccines mandatory and raised the stakes of not complying. In India,
Kerala state instituted a new vaccine mandate
for the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine after growing resistance
led to serious declines in vaccination rates and constituted a major
threat to India’s progress toward eliminating measles. Such policy
responses to anti-vaccine sentiment are very common and often the first
line of defense.
When faced with a viewpoint or behavior that seems completely
irrational, it’s often very tempting to essentially “bully” people with
facts, overwhelming them with all the reasons why their viewpoint is
factually wrong. But recent research has found that not only does this
approach often fail to change people’s minds and behaviors, it may even
backfire. This is the basis for the
“backfire effect,” a phenomenon in which people become more entrenched in their views after being bombarded with evidence against it.
A
recent experiment from
researchers at Dartmouth illustrates the principle well. Subjects were
given fake newspaper articles that seemingly confirmed several very
common misconceptions from recent history, such as that there were
weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. When they were then given a
corrective article indicating that weapons were never found, liberals
who opposed the war accepted the new article and rejected the old,
whereas conservatives who supported the war did the opposite. In fact,
those who did not change their view reported being even more convinced
that there were weapons after being exposed to the correct information.
Another recent study
showed what goes on in the brain when someone experiences the “backfire
effect.” Participants were surveyed about their opinions on particular
political issues and then were placed in an fMRI machine to measure
brain activity. They were then presented with a large quantity of
information that disproved their stated opinions. In a follow-up survey
several weeks later, researchers found stronger inclination toward
original views in the majority of participants. More importantly for
this study, however, is what they found about brain activity during
these informational challenges. Regions of the brain associated with
strong emotion were heavily activated while parts of the brain
associated with cognitive reasoning and comprehension were suppressed.
In essence, the parts of the brain needed to absorb the new information
were shut down by the parts of the brain associated with strong emotion.
As we can see, when people are faced with challenges to strongly-held
beliefs, they may become emotional and dig their heels in. This can be a
response to a barrage of new information that challenges what they
believe, or a response to new laws that challenge the behavioral
outcomes of strongly-held beliefs. Either way, we can see how punitive
policies to address strongly-held beliefs might be limited, even if they
are necessary.
Even when new laws are passed, lawmakers must take great care about
how they communicate about them, especially if the law touches on
“hot-button” issues like childhood vaccines or gun control. For example,
recent research
has suggested that presenting people with views they disagreed with on
paper made them discount the intellect of the person presenting the
views much more than when there was a video explanation provided
instead. This is just one of many ways in which the medium and the
precise content of a potentially controversial message can change the
way it is received.
When faced with difficult viewpoints and behaviors of constituents,
policymakers must think very carefully about how to respond. Often laws
and regulations are needed, but what gets put in place with those
regulations also needs to be carefully considered before new laws are
implemented, not as an afterthought.
Read more: Governments would get more done if they bullied people less on issues like anti-vaccination — Quartz
