How to Convince a Conservative, JohnnyCougar style. [View All]

[JohnnyCougar]

Many people here and on other boards lament the short attention span of Americans, and how they forget about reality and facts. Of course, this gets correctly applied to Bush supporters on DU. But is this really an American problem? Is this just an anecdote that frustrated liberals use to somehow rationalize conservatives' support for Bush?

Is it true that conservatives do not base their support for Bush on quantifiable information at all? The answer is most likely yes, and the reason is not inherent to Americans or conservatives. We all have short attention spans, at least when it comes to evaluating one's behaviors. It has to do with how we process and store information about others. I actually just reviewed a study about this (for my personnel psychology class) but I found an applicable connection to politics that I will elaborate upon here.

The way managers evaluate an employee's performance is very similar to the way voters evaluate a president's performance (I am inferring).

In this example, Election Day can be seen as the evaluation, and everything leading up to it the behavior being evaluated. There are two types of recall people use to evaluate observed behavior. If the evaluation period comes immediately after the performance being evaluated, people use a memory-based rating model, in which they:

Observe Behavior --> Store Behavior --> Recall Behavior --> Evaluate Behavior --> Vote

This is the typical recall procedure for immediate rating of a behavior (within a few hours). Notice that we store the actual behavior in memory, and recall the actual behavior. We then make the judgment afterwards when we are about to evaluate/vote.

Any longer than a few hours, and this model falls apart. People forget facts and specific behaviors, and thus it seems we get a nation with a short attention span. If people don't write specific behaviors down, they will forget about them. Then how do we evaluate someone using long-term recall? What strategy do we use to evaluate performance long after the performance period has passed? The process is known as On-Line Integration. This process is detailed here:

Observe Behavior --> Evaluate Behavior --> Store Judgment --> Recall Judgment --> Vote

So, in other words, people don't remember specific behaviors when forming an impression of a person...they form a judgment after the first couple minutes, and remember the judgment, not the behavior. This judgement is used to create a larger image of the person being evaluated, and the voter relies on this generalized image rather than facts when voting.

What practical implications does this have? It means that you're not going to win an argument with most conservatives by debating facts, what Bush did, and what Bush didn't do. Conservatives don't remember facts when deciding whether they like Bush or not, they rely on a general judgment impression. Trying to dismantle this general impression with facts and actual examples of behavior is like trying to huff and puff and blow a brick house down.

No, to convince a conservative, you have to appeal to their general impression about Bush. Give a little ground. Acknowledge what they are saying. "Yeah...I hated Saddam Hussein, too. And Bin Laden is Pure trash!" But then subtly attack Bush's character impression by saying "But I just don't trust Bush...he is too connected to big oil and Wall Street. And he's out of touch with America. I just don't think he gets it."

I PROMISE you that this approach will go much farther than trying to debate facts. Anyone with the ability to analyze facts is already on the Democrats' side right now, anyways (except for the super powerful, who are glad they are making billions of this scam of a war). I know it doesn't make any sense to ignore specific facts and go with feelings and general impressions, but you will win. Research backs it up (Sanchez, J. I. & De La Torre, P. 1996. A second look at the relationship between rating and behavioral accuracy in performance appraisal. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(1), 3-10.) And I know from first hand experience. I have been massaging some dittoheads for quite some time now, and they all are less than enamored by Bush.

Bush has left the door wide open for character criticisms with his Social Security scam and this Terri Schiavo BS. Go to work, people! Tell your conservative friends that you just don't trust Bush anymore because of his connections to Wall Street and the Religious Right!