Public Perception: The Psychology Behind Public Acceptance of Misinformation & Political Rumors with Adam Berinsky, PhD

This episode offers psychosocial education designed to inspire and motivate our listeners. The information provided does not constitute a therapeutic relationship nor a substitute for professional mental health care. If you are experiencing a mental health crisis, call 91 1, go to your nearest emergency room or for listeners in the United States, text 988 for the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This episode contains brain food that will lead to improved emotional and social intelligence. Thanks for tuning in to Harvesting Happiness today for a healthy serving of consciously prepared brain food. This is Lisa Cypress Kamen, your host. Since 2010 we've been broadcasting sound ideas for better well being. Each week we spotlight diverse thinkers and doers who are contemporary trendsetters and change agents to vote their lives to creating a better world. I invite you to listen and change how you think about human happiness. Our award winning content is fresh, optimistic and purpose driven media that promotes well being from the inside out. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening wherever you are. Thanks for joining me on today's show where you will learn about public perception, the psychology behind public acceptance of misinformation and political rumors. My guest today is Dr. Adam Barinski.

He is the Mitsui professor of Political Science at MIT and a faculty affiliate at the Institute for Data Systems and Society. A leading expert on political behavior and public opinion, he has spent the last 15 years researching the spread of political rumors and misinformation and how they shape our democracy. And he is the author of the newly released Political why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight It. Adam, thank you so much for being here because this subject gets me riled up.

Thank you for having me.

Let's talk about misinformation, disinformation and how difficult it is to correct it or mitigate it.

Yeah, I mean, so misinformation is not a new problem, you know. So there's been political rumors in the U.S. u.S. Since the founding, you know, sort of thoughts about the French, Canadians, the British. So I mean, this is nothing new. So you know, anyone who's familiar with the JFK assassination rumors, you know, going into the 70s. So this is nothing new, but you know, it's something that has become sort of more the forefront of the political landscape, you know, in the last 15 years or so. And as you said, it's really hard to correct misinformation once it's out there, you know, so once something's loose in the environment, it's really hard to get it back in the cage.

It's funny you say that because I have brought Facts to people's attention based upon, they say, well, this is what the reality is. This is. And I say, no, no, it's misinformation, it's disinformation. And here are the facts, here is the study, here the citations. And they still will not believe it.

Yeah, I mean, so you know, this is, you know, when I started this project about 15 years ago, right. The thought was if we have bad information, we just need to bring back good information and people will change their minds. But as it happens, you know, if I say something that you don't like, you can change your view of your opinions or you can change your view of me. Right. It's much easier to change your view of the person correcting your information than it is to change your beliefs itself. And so, you know, this gets at notions of fact checkers that, you know, back in the 2000, you know, 2000s, 2010s, there was a lot of emphasis put on the importance of having fact checkers.

Right.

Bringing experts in to say, now this claim is supported, this claim is not supported, this is the truth, this is misinformation. But that's all predicated on people accepting the authority of the fact checkers. And so again, you know, like on one side of the divide, you know, if you don't like what the fact checkers are saying, it's very easy to say like, oh, they're just biased. Right.

It's just to discredit the fact checkers.

Exactly. And you know, to dismiss them out of. So not, not even just to discredit them, but to basically say there's no source of authority there. Right. These are just people who are biased, who are putting their political views forward and their so called facts are not the real facts. And you know, this gets at question of the alternative facts. Right. And kind of flexible reality there. But you know, again, this is nothing new. You know, sort of the question of authority, you know, who gets to decide what is the truth or not. Right. This is something that, it's constant in societies over time. It's just something that's really come to the head because we get a kind of real split in the present day between, you know, sort of people who are, stick to their beliefs and other people who say that they want to rationally evaluate the evidence. And just there's, it's really hard to have a conversation between those two kinds of people.

It sure is. I mean, and it is as many people who are listening and many people, maybe even between you and I know that it has polarized people and families because of one's beliefs then become personal, like as you're saying, separate from the facts, and therein lies the family feud, so to speak. And this, this I find heartbreaking. But how can we, if we can get people to say, all right, I am going to rely on facts, I am going to defer to the research, I am going to pay attention. Are we beyond that? Is it that we throw up our hands and say, well, whatever, yeah, that's

a very depressing thought, terrible thought. And so, you know, there's some. It depends on the day you catch me. Some days I'm like, yep, that's where we are. But I do think that there is a potential solution. You know, another way to think about this is that, you know, take fact checkers, for instance, right? The idea there is that we have experts who are, you know, trained journalists, trained researchers who can say, now these claims are supported by the evidence and these aren't. And it's great to have experts doing that, right? But these people aren't necessarily the best people to deliver the message. And so what I think is really important is to separate out the message from the messenger, right? So think about having an expert decide or determine, you know, what is, what are the facts, but then finding the right person to deliver that message. So in my work, I did some work on death panels and death panel, it was new back when I started this project, but maybe people forget, but the Affordable Care act had some provisions related to discussions with doctors about end of life decisions that got warped and twisted into notion that there would be death panels, that you have these government run panels to decide whether or not grandma and grandpa get to live or die based on their worth to society, which is not true. And you had a lot of professional experts saying that these weren't true. Now having those people deliver the message, having a fact checker come in, it's like someone who's scolding you. It's just like, well, that's not really true. Here's what's true is not necessarily the best strategy. Instead, have someone come in who's going to be a trusted source, a reliable source to deliver that information. So in that case, if you have nonpartisan people saying, oh, there are no death panels, just trust us, people will move their beliefs a little. But if you have Republican politicians, people who are speaking against their interest, then that's going to be a much more effective way of correcting misinformation. But again, the key is that we don't want to be flexible about the facts. We don't want to be flexible about determining what experts say, but we need to be a lot more flexible in thinking about who delivers that message in a more effective way.

So it is a former believer or Kool Aid drinker that then is moved by facts and then says, you know, after paying attention or reading or researching, I'm really seeing that this is the reality.

Yeah. I mean, so that could be one, there could be others as well. You know, thinking about back to early days of the COVID vaccine, you know, that trying to get communities that might be skeptical. Right. Don't bring in, say, a doctor who's like, oh, just trust me, this is all okay. Because people, you know, even reasonable people might say like, well, you know, are they just getting paid off by big Pharma? Like, why are they saying this? Instead bring in like a trusted community leader. And we saw this happen in a lot of cases there. So it doesn't necessarily have to be, you know, the person who's gone through the conversion experience and has seen the light. It could be someone who is already there in the first place. Someone who thinks this is really important for my community and I want to get that message out and people are going to listen to me because I'm prominent in that community. I think really the important thing is to think creatively. I've talked over the years to lots of folks about these experiments that I've done. I talk about my death panel experiments. They said, okay, I got it. The solution is we have Republicans correcting misinformation that is Republican based. And I was like, well, you know, like that's one strategy. But then we can think about, you know, Liz Cheney talking about election fraud after the 2000 election.

Right.

That didn't work so well. You know, Liz Cheney, she's got the, the pedigree, the leadership, Republican leadership experience. But she was still painted as someone that we shouldn't trust.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's like, that's not the right message. The right message is let's think creat about the messenger. And also the starting point is separating out the message from the messenger. But we need to think really creatively about who is the best person in a given situation to deliver the message, saying, here's the facts, here's what you, an ordinary person who doesn't have expertise should listen to.

I think in an ideal scene, that makes perfect sense. But when we talk about the messenger being somebody, let's say from within in the Republican Party who's trying to dispel disinformation or misinformation. A lot of these people know that there's BS going on and for whatever their interests are or their fear or their election status, being concerned for what's coming next within their constituency, they're not speaking up or they're just scared.

No, absolutely.

I think that fear is a, is a really big thing.

Yeah. And that's like when I said earlier, there's days that I get depressed about this and think the solution. Those are the days, I think, especially thinking about what happened with Republican politicians after January 6th who tried to dispel the mess that I said, if you as a person don't like the message that you're hearing from me, you can change your view of the message, which was the hope is what would happen after January6 dispelling these myths of voter fraud. But instead they changed their view of the messenger. Right. In this case again, Liz Cheney, this daughter of the former Vice President. Right. You know, basically as conservative as they come, part of Republican leadership. You know, to me that was an amazing, you know, and not amazing in a good way. It was an amazing thing that basically people change their view of her. So yes, I know, I guess that you know, that there are days again, it's not, there is no magic solution there. So like what I'm really trying to do is saying, you know, let's be creative and not to say this is going to fix everything because it's not going to fix everything. But you know, it's, that's basically, let's move into a strategy that it might be effective. And I think that this is. When I first started talking about this, I talked to different groups of politicians, policymakers. I used to have to spend a lot of time saying just because someone is an expert in a given field, because they're trained as an expert, doesn't mean that people are automatically going to listen to them. I don't need to spend that time anymore because it's very obvious that that's what's happening in the world. And so, you know, I think what's really important is, you know, in some ways it's good, is that we don't assume that facts are self correcting. Right. We don't assume just getting the good information out there is going to drive out the bad so there's a better recognition of the problem. But at the same time, you know, that's makes the solution a lot harder.

Two things come to mind. The first is the different levels of belief, you know, that there are different kinds of believers. You know, there's the hardcore, no matter what. I mean, I would love for you to sort of elaborate on that. And the other part of it is, instead of focusing on the messenger, maybe a different strategy is focusing on the Venn diagram, like, knowing like, we're all human, right? People who don't share the same beliefs. There is an overlap. There's this one little corner of everyone's life that does overlap. And I'm wondering if any of your research has been done on going there as the strategy so you stay away from the disinformation or the misinformation and go to the information that we share to be true.

Yeah, no, that's a great, great point is, you know, sort of thinking about this. Often when we think about who believes misinformation, you know, we think about the people with the tinfoil hats and crazy conspiracies. But that's not everyone, right? You know, and I think. I think it's especially important, you know, so I'm a political scientist, so I think about politics a lot, but I also think about medicine and health and science. And I think in a lot of cases, it's not that people are necessarily misinformed in that they're embracing things that are false. It's just that they don't have a lot of information there to draw on. And so, you know, when I think about my talk about how people think about politics, I always tell people, these are my undergrads, or if I give talks to professionals and I'll say your audience as well. I always tell people, the fact that you're listening to me talk about this means that you're weird, you're unusual, right? That you care about politics. Most people don't spend that time thinking about politics for a variety of reasons. They have jobs, they have lives, they have hobbies. And so when we're thinking about this, it's really important not to think about how you and I, for example, would talk about politics, but to think how would an average person who has a lot going on in their lives think about politics? And most of the people most of the time aren't paying close attention. And so that's a face in which where you could have misinformation just that's in the information ecosystem that just out there that they come across it. And it's not that they're embracing it, it's just that they're not. You sort of like, not really sure what to believe there.

So they're in the middle. They're not the Hardcore. They're just sort of on the average, if it's passing through their feed, it's kind of going from their eyes, right?

Yeah. So I talk a lot of my book about incidental exposure, which is a big word, big way of saying, you know, it's just some way that they come across this. So it's interesting. So when I do, when I do my work, I ask questions. You know, I surveyed the public and I said, you know, like, do you think that this particular belief is true or not? So, for example, do you think that Barack Obama was born in the U.S. so there's been, you know, sort of, this is actually what really got me going in the first place, is thinking about these citizenship conspiracies.

But.

Right. This notion that Barack Obama was not actually born in Hawaii, but was instead born in Kenya or Indonesia or some other place. So it depends on the rumor. And so if I ask people, do you think this is. You believe this? Do you not believe this? Or are you not sure? There are a lot of people who say that they're not sure. Now, it could be that some people who say they're not sure, like, I've never heard of this before, but I did follow up questions where I would ask people after asking them, do you think that this, do you believe this? Do you not believe this? Are you not sure? I said, well, what did you hear that made you, that brought you to this particular set of beliefs there? And so people would say, not sure. Some people would just say, I've never heard of that before. But there are also a lot of people who said, like, you know, there's a lot going on out there. You know, I hear these stories, I'm not really sure what to believe. And essentially, where there's smoke, there's fire, Right? And so that's what I worry about,

the National Enquirer headline, right? Like, where there's like one word might have a bit of truth to it.

Exactly. Or, you know, like you're on social media and you've got some friends who are deep into conspiracy. So you're not. But you see this going back and forth and say, you know, like, was Obama born in the U.S. right? Is, you know, is he from Kenya? And then if you don't pay much attention to politics, you might not gravitate to it, you might not grab on it. But you know, if we think about was he born in the US like, oh, I heard something about that. Like, oh, maybe that's true, maybe that isn't true. I'm not sure. And so that's, that's what I really worry about. So in addition, so I like when I started my project, you know, I was very, you know, hopeful. Right. So this is back in 2009 and I felt like, oh, this is really weird. You know, I'm going to spend a couple of years running surveys to try to figure out, you know, who believes this and why and then a couple of years figuring out here's how we can correct misinformation and then I'll be done, you know, sort of go home, mission accomplished. But then you sort of realizing over time that these hardcore people who really believe this strongly aren't necessarily going to give up those beliefs. Right. As you said. Right. Presenting them with facts, they can counter, argue. Every time I talk about this, I always say like, oh, if you were to Google some topic and I always want to give a warning in that, you know, I don't want to send people down rabbit holes. But you know, if you're to Goog know, was 911 an inside job by the Bush administration, it will take you to different videos. Spare Change is one that, you know, so again, I remember that.

Right.

Yes, yep. I hesitate to, you know, recommend that because I don't want to send your listeners down those rabbit holes. But you know, that it's really hard that to convince people. So, you know, over time I've moved from thinking that we want to really focus on converting the believers to also saying like, there's this, there's this kind of low hanging fruit there of people who say like I'm not really sure what to think and you know, we can change their minds at least in the short term. And so I guess that that's somewhat optimistic in that saying, you know, just because there's some hardcore believers we can't move doesn't mean that we have to give up because there's this other group that we can target, these people who say that they're not sure they're sort of in the middle that we can actually affect.

Well, with them you might be able to have a reasonable conversation. Right. There actually can be dialogue. Let's take a pause and when we come back, we will continue the conversation with my guest today, Adam Barinski. We're talking about his book Political why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight It. You can connect with Adam on all platforms. Adam Barinsky or variations thereof. You can find him at MIT by going to Barinsky mit. Edu. Here comes that pause. I'll be right back.

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Okay, Adam, help. Give us some tools and strategies because the ones that I've been working on, maybe they're only moderately successful, but maybe not.

Yeah. So I should say the title of my book, why We Believe Misinformation and How to Fight it, is, I should say, as I always say, I made a lot more progress on that first part than the second part. So in terms of looking for solutions, there's no magic bullet. There's no magic solution that's going to fix everything. When I talk to groups, I always tell people, I know you brought me in because you want me to say, here's the three easy things you need to do to fix the misinformation problem.

Yes, please.

I always say, I'm not going to do that because I can't. And anyone who says that they can is a snake oil salesman, and you should run away. You know, I've talked to a lot of international audiences as well, so I've learned the comparable terms for snake oil salesmen in other countries and other cultures. But I think that there is, there is this kind of notion that there are these very simple solutions, and if only we could implement them, then this problem would go away. So, you know, one, one thing to think about is critical thinking skills or kind of thinking about media literacy.

Amen.

This is really important, you know, like, you know, I don't want to say, you know, I don't want people to, to think I'm about to argue, say that critical thinking isn't important. But, you know, critical thinking is a big part of a conspiratorial mindset. Right. Kind of thinking so often struck by Russia today, which is the propaganda arm of the Russian government that's outward facing other countries. The motto of Russia today is question everything, right? And so I think what's really important is, you know, thinking it's important to be critical, but we can have those skills honed to such a point that we're not going to trust anything, right? And so when we think about that, we want people to be critical, but if they're critical of what they read to a certain degree, that's good. But if they're critical of everything they read and everything they see, then they're not going to believe anything. Taking it to logical, extreme, questioning everything is believing nothing. And that's really difficult. I think that it is really important when we think about this, is that, you know, in some ways, critical thinking, media literacy skills are both a solution and. But also a further problem there that, you know, we want them. You know, when people say we want them to trust the media, we have particular media in mind. And so when we say we want people to have critical views of media that they shouldn't trust, then sometimes that spills over into mainstream media. And I think in large part, that's why where we are today is that it is the case that, you know, sort of being critical of some media can become critical of all media, and that, you know, sort of. I, you know, I don't want to go postmodern, but that's kind of this notion of that if I'm questioning my reality, my truth, then what is reality and what is truth? And I think it is really. It's really important to kind of. To keep in mind having practical solutions that are based in critical thinking, but that at a certain point, you know, critical thinking can be kind of like the snake that eats itself.

I like your point that you're making. I do get what you're saying. And then I think that part of what's going on now is about movie making. Right. Like, if any. If anybody listening or you yourself have spent any time with lawyers, a good trial lawyer will say that my strategy is always about the movie, the narrative that I'm crafting to defend my position. And I think so much of what's going on in government today is about that, especially when it gets revised after the fact with those alternative facts.

Yeah, yeah. No, I mean, it is. You know, think about the. The old Daniel Patrick Moynihan line of, like, you're entitled to your own opinions, but you're not entitled to your own facts. You know, that came from a time where there was a lot less polarization you mentioned political polarization before, kind of the distance between the parties that you had. You know, he was a member of the Senate at a time where it was more of a sort of communal, maybe even clubby. Right. I don't want to romanticize the past in that regard, but that members of Congress, especially senators, could have discussions, disagreements over policies, but still start with the same basic facts, saying, here's the state of the world, here is what's going on out there, and we might disagree on how to solve that problem, but we're going to agree that there is a problem. And I think, you know, as the, you know, the Democrats and the Republicans have moved apart politically, there's less common ground, not just about policy, but about how we think about how the world operates there. And so I think it's really, you know, sort of, again, I say, you know, I'm much better at diagnosing problems, as I said, than coming up with solutions. But, you know, I How do we get out of a situation where the parties, Democrats and Republicans, look at the same current state of the US but look at it through very different lenses? And I'm talking here not about ordinary people. I'm talking about politicians, the people who are making these decisions. And if we can't have agreement on facts, then how can we have any compromise on policy?

Quite well taken. And, you know, a lot of what's going on in politics today, when you look at budget cuts that are about to happen and you think about, let's say, red states versus blue states and the amount of money that the red states take for these services that are going to be cut, that the residents of those states are the ones that voted for Trump, let's say, and they're going to be damaged, they're going to be impacted greatly by these changes. And maybe that's the way it needs to happen. Like, when you feel it in your pocket, that's when it won't shift.

So I think that that may be true, but I guess that I'm less optimistic. And again, I think this gets back to thinking about how ordinary people think about politics. You know, most of the people most of the time aren't paying attention. And so, like, even if there are tangible cost, you know, they're not necessarily going to make those ties to particular policies. But I think what this gets at is like, who are the actual, you know, bad, you know, guys and gals here, right? Like, who are the villains of the story? I think in many ways are politicians. You know, sort of when, you know, I Spend my whole life, you know, studying mass political behavior. So I said, like, I'm on the reception side. I think about how ordinary people are dealing with politics there. And, you know, often when I give talks, you know, people say, like, are you basically just saying that folks are idiots and. No, no, no. It's like that they're, that they're disengaged, they're rational, they've made a choice, that they have busy lives, that they only are engaged, engage with politics in a more superficial way. And the way they do that is I pick my team. Am I a Democrat or Republican? And I trust that the politicians of my team, of my party are going to be good act, good faith actors, right? That they're going to make decisions that are in line with the values there. And so if we have a case where politicians are not behaving well, you know, I think that, you know, throughout history there's been misinformation on both the left and the right. But I think it's very clear. You know, sort of speaking as an empirical social scientist, you know, I'm very data driven. I look at the data and see there's a lot more coming from the right than the left today. So when I think about who are the, you know, who are the villains in this current story, it's politicians who are not being good faith brokers engaging with real evidence there. So, you know, thinking about the case of voter fraud, the 2020 election, right, there is lots of evidence that it was, it really was one of the most well run, well, sort of well engaged elections in history, right? And so notions of voter fraud are not at all supported by the evidence there. But, you know, sort of, it's hard to get politicians, Republican politicians, to say that. Earlier you said that there's the fear, like if, right. If I speak against Trump, if I speak against this party line, like there was voter fraud, someone's going to come and knock me out in a primary, right? And so we can just look again at Liz Cheney, right? So, like, that's what happened there.

I think there's visceral physical fear of physical harm to themselves

and rightfully so. You know, what just happened in Minnesota, you know, so what happened a few years ago? The plot to kidnap the governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer.

But this is, this is, you know, this is Cocoa Puffs.

Yeah, no, I mean, it's. And, but so I do think that, I think if, if folks are looking for a villain here, like I said, I think it's not the ordinary people. I Think that they're basic, they're victims as well. It's these politicians there. And so again though, it gets us to a point where so like, well, what's the solution? The solution is get better politicians.

Yes, but not many people want the job. Right. It takes a certain kind of person to want the job and have the fortitude to go through the vetting process. And in general, a lot of these people are not the cream of the crop because the cream of the crop doesn't want the job.

Yep. I could see this in. Right. Retirement, retirement rates for members of Congress. But also in some ways it's even worse than that is that of the people who have the job. Right. The, you know, I think a lot about incentives and behavior, like how can we get people to do what we would like them to do? Right. And so politicians, how can we get them to work in a fact based environment where they have evidence? The problem is that, you know, if you, if you don't do that, you know, sort of looking at Trump, looking at some other politicians, you know, if you just say like, oh, this is all lies and misinformation, then you're rewarded. Right. You know, sort of thinking about Trump 2024, I could talk, there's lots of rewrite. It's not necessarily that people were saying, I love Trump, I want to have that. There was definitely worry about the economy, but enough people were comfortable enough with a former president who led an insurrection and was not clearly not at all interested in facts to elect them again there. And so if I'm a politician, you know, I look at and say like, well, you know, Trump impeached, not convicted, you know, had federal convictions versus someone like Liz Cheney who stood up for the truth and say like I look at their fates, like, do as a politician, do I want to be Trump or do I want to be Liz Cheney? If I want to win office, if I want to keep my job, more likely to be Trump than Liz Cheney, which is, you know, again, that's a depressing story. So I'm sorry, I keep coming back to you offer these rays of hope and I keep saying like, no, no,

no, no, it's a dour Friday. Yeah, maybe it's just a dower Friday, but I think that's part of my job, right. Is like to be the hope holder.

It's good, I need that. Yes. No, I'm not a lot of fun at parties, you know, the last few years talking about.

No, it's hard.

State of the world.

It is really, really hard. I Hope is that people will come, become fatigued by what is when they see how it hits their pockets, when they see how it hits education, when it see, see how it hits their opportunities, that's when the change will occur. And maybe that is less work for those of us trying to debunk, you know, the nonsense. It's just like, okay, this is what the population wanted, a slim narrow victory, right? But this, then we have to see it unfold. And what, what, what value do we hold for democracy as we have known it in our, in our lifetimes, like you, Adam, myself and myself, Right, because we're of a certain age that our children may not ever experience.

Yeah, I mean, so I would say that, I mean this, you know, sort of, you know, history ebbs and flows, right? And think so I think there's hope in that. But I guess one thing, you know, not to bring another depressing thought into this, but allow me to bring another depressing thought. You know, like if we're basically reliant on like, you know, so things get bad and then you replace the party in power, you know, if things get bad again, then you, you can flip things again. Right? And so thinking about, and I think long term reward, we really do need to think as a country, and again, I'm better at identifying problems than looking at identifying solutions. But I think we really need to think about how sustainable is this system if it's just basically people implement policies that don't work and so the other party comes in and those policies don't work and then we go again, a musical chairs kind of thing. But you know, at a basic level, if this is happening because politicians are not engaging with the facts, right? If they're not, you know, they're not engaging with expertise, they're not involving expertise, well, then maybe they are in a really bad shape.

Yeah, maybe they are, but they don't like what they're being told. In other words, the typical white older male politician is a dinosaur in the America that we have today. And that's part of the problem, right? America today is every color of the rainbow. It's a melting pot. The melting pot part was always the case, but in the past we had deferred to the white wealthy older man. And that no longer represents who America is and what America needs. And that's part of the problem, at least in my view.

Yeah, no, but I do think that there is this more general problem though, of. And this is not just true in politics. You know, in every field, kind of trust in experts has gone down over time. So trust in the media, trust in scientists.

Well, everybody's a trusted education, right.

You know, and it's right. So, you know, I think that this is this, there is this larger problem in that, you know, expert, you know, I mean, there's always been a theme in American history about kind of the distrust of elites, you know, who are these people telling us what to do? But, you know, there was a long period of time where, you know, thinking about, you know, sort of scientific gains over the 20th century, you know, sort of what happened in, you know, I'm thinking a lot about this given, you know, the current attacks on higher education. But, you know, a lot of sort of the post World War II explosion in American technology was driven by this partnership between scientists and universities and government officials who are trying to kind of help the US progress. And if we distrust scientists, then, you know, we're losing a key thing there. Right. If we distrust the media, right. If they think, oh, that's just fake news, then who do we trust? And you know, sort of what's going on with medical, you know, sort of the medical world these days too, you know, thinking about, you know, the, what's happening in health and human services with vaccines, you know, like this was a miracle, right? That the kind of the, you know, I'm of an age where the polio vaccine was in well use before I was born. But you know, that my parents generation remember that time. And yes, you know, we're forgetting that.

Right.

And it's. Right, it's sort of thinking about this. So I think. So the misinformation problem is one big part of this, you know, big problem in politics. But it ties into this larger question about trust in experts and thinking about who gets to decide, you know, what is evidence for policy and what isn't. But not just political policy, but medical policy, you know, public health.

Well, clearly some TikTok famous influencers are, you know, the new experts both in healthcare and government. So. Yeah, I mean, and maybe that also part of the problem is the accessibility of constant data 247 and where people's attention blows because they're getting these little nuggets, very quick hits of data and it doesn't matter if they're real.

Yeah, no. And you know, again, it gets, you know, thinking about, I talked about the bad actors in politics, right. If we're talking about medicine, alternative medicine, there's tons of bad actors there, Right. And they're right. It's not that they're trying to necessarily, you know, harm public Health, but they're trying to sell their supplements. They're trying, basically there's a financial incentive for them to do that, to get that bad information out there. So you know, in my work I've talked to different doctors groups and you know, they have these horror stories about patients who come to them having done different forms of alternative medicine. And you know, the people who are selling that medicine are making lots of money. Right. Doing that. That's it. It's not in the public health. But again, you know, sort of thinking about the bad actors there. There's a lot of, there's a lot of money and bad information. And so yes, I agree with you.

Yeah, but, but I want to say one thing about alternative medicine because I think that, that not all alternative medicine is bad and not all western medicine is good. I think a lot of western medicine, and this is probably a whole other show as well, is there is. It's very easy to write a prescription for a medication for somebody than it is to take the time to teach them lifestyle interventions that would solve their problem. And that's because of the state of medical care too.

Yeah, but, yeah, I mean, I guess, but the, you know, sort of, I guess what I'm talking about are not the people who are trying to like change your life. So you know, sort of like you're

talking about, I understand, like the supplements that are going to.

I'm 55 now, it's like I got, I look 30 ice cream and like, like that's a lifestyle change. Yeah, but you know, that I don't worry about that. You know, it's like I need to do that. But then there's someone out there who says, I'm gonna sell you a pillow that this magic herb that will allow you to eat all the ice cream that you want and you don't need to worry. And that's the concern.

That's snake oil.

Yeah, and that's exactly that's.

And people will believe it because they are hopeful because it's an easy way out.

If I could buy a pill that would allow me to eat all the ice cream I want, I would be the first in line for that.

Oh, gosh. Well, we can talk more about this at another time because I really do enjoy this kind of conversation and it's something I think about a lot and because it ties into happiness. Right. It ties into our own subjective well being and the pursuit of a good life and all this nonsense has really messed with people's daily experience and their relationships.

And again writes the bad Actor. Right. These are not people who are like in. When we're talking about health care, these are not people who are trying to make you happier. These are people who are trying to mind their pocket. And this is a big issue. It's similar thing in politics. These are not people who. There are some people who have views that I disagree with, who genuinely believe them, who think that this actually is the right path for the US to take. But there's a lot of other people who don't believe that. But see, like, here's the path to reelection is like basically doubling down on misinformation, not because I think that it's right, but because I think it's what's going to get me reelected and what's going to help my party, not my

people, not my constituents. Right. You have a lot of the constituents in these areas who are hopping mad at what's going on in their state because they didn't sign up for this.

Right. They.

They didn't sign up for their present reality.

Yep. Yeah. That's a whole nother conversation, a whole other conversation.

And we need to end on a hopeful note at least.

Okay. Please. Yes, yes.

And the hopeful note, we should each have one little kernel. I mean, for me, it's that. That if we really take the time and energy to do good things for the people that are in our immediate environment, control the things that we can that and focus there, it helps to diffuse a little bit of the other stuff.

Yeah. So I would say, you know, sort of the hopeful note that I've been taking. You know, so when I, when I say there's no magic bullet, right. There's no magic solution that's going to fix everything, that doesn't mean that there isn't anything that we can do. It doesn't mean that there's no hope, but just means we need to adjust our expectation. Like, no one's going to come in and make this go away. But it doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to do things. So it talks about, you know, having, you know, sort of separating the message from the messenger and having effective messengers. It's not going to. That's not a magic solution. Right. Maybe that will move the beliefs of, you know, people 2 or 3%, but, you know, sort of nudging people's beliefs towards truth a little bit is better than doing nothing at all. So I think, like, a lot of what I've been trying to do when I talk to policymakers and I talk to other practitioners is I want to get people excited about small changes, right? So, you know, if I talk to someone and I, you know, say like, oh, my God, this is horrible. How can we fix this? I say, well, we can't fix it, but we can, we can get people to maybe stop sharing so much bad information online. We can get them to maybe move their beliefs a little bit. We can focus on these people who say that they're not sure. I want to get people excited about that because those are things that we can do. But if we're gonna say, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fine, but I want the magic solution we're never gonna find, right?

With anything.

So, yeah, like, my mission right now is to get people excited about small changes. Like small, realistic changes. And there are things that we can do and we need to keep thinking

about that, keep doing it, like, act locally, you know, to the people in places that we have direct connection.

Even if we just do a little bit, you know, thinking about, you know, so, you know, I don't want to get all academic, but I'll get academic for a second is thinking about. I talk about counterfactuals, like, what would the world look like if we didn't do anything? And so I said, like, well, if we don't try anything, right? The counterfactual is not this other world where everything is fixed. So people are always looking for the magic solution that's just down the road. And so that's what they have in mind is their counterfactual. It's like, if we, you know, we just need to keep looking for this thing that's going to fix everything that's not there, right? If we have a realistic counterfactual mind saying, like, basically where we are today, where things are not good, why not try to make them just a little bit better, but also get excited about making things a little bit better? Because the alternative is not the magic wonderful world where everything is great wine and roses. The alternative is the kind of crap we're living in today. And so let's think about that and get excited about some small changes.

I'm with you. And you know, do our bit, whatever that bit looks like. Adam Barinsky, thank you so much for sharing part of your day with me. We're talking about his book, Political why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight It. You can know more, learn more, and connect with Adam Barinsky on all platforms. You can find him at Barinsky mit. We'll have to hang out again, do a follow up.

Thank you so much for having me.

This is wonderful. Yeah. Thank you.

Thanks for joining us on Harvesting Happiness today. This is Lisa Cypress Kamen on behalf of my guest Adam Barinski wishing you kind thoughts, kinder words and the kindest of actions. Until next time, remember, happiness is an inside job. Happiness is your inside job. Please go out to and rock your day and remember to be kind to one another. Want to explore more sound ideas for better well being? Check out our new bonus edition content at More Mental Fitness by Harvesting Happiness on Substack and Medium. Subscribe, listen and share hundreds of downloadable episodes wherever you get your podcasts, connect with and follow us on most social media channels. To learn more about life, lifestyle management and mental fitness consulting services, please visit harvestinghappiness.com Harvesting Happiness and More Mental Fitness are produced by Lisa Cypress Kamen, Andrea Mengeli, Robin Boyd, Andrea Dalley and the excellent team at Podfly Productions including Eric Begay, Kimberly Beck and Alec Guess in collaboration with Togi Net Radio, KBUU, Radio Mountain Malibu.net and is available on PRX, the public radio Exchange.