Glass Houses and Stone Throwing
Let’s turn to the matter of Aronson’s disinterest in considering the broad context of an issue is “boring.” It somehow feels that considering relevant context “boring” is an exercise in prejudice; at the very least, prejudice in its original, literal sense – making decisions without the benefit of full and comprehensive consideration.
By his own admission, Aronson (in The Social Animal) admitted to the huge impact that ignorance of the complete context of a situation can invalidate psychological experiments, metrics, and results –
I was unaware of the possible weakness in the Janis and Field experiment until it was called to my attention, gently but firmly by one of my former students, who pointed out that it was weighted unintentionally against women in much the same way IQ tests were once weighted against rural and ghetto residents. The topics of the persuasive arguments included civil defense, cancer research, the German World War I military leader von Hindenburg, and so on—topics the culture of the 1950s encouraged men to take an interest in while women were encouraged toward more “feminine” matters. I realized that the results may simply have meant that people are more persuasible on topics they aren’t curious or knowledgeable about.
Indeed, my speculations were confirmed by a subsequent series of experiments by Frank Sistrunk and John Mc David. In their studies, they used a variety of topics, some of typically greater interest to men and others applying more to the interests and expertise of women. Their results showed that although women were more persuasible on the masculine-oriented topics, men were more persuasible on the topics that traditionally have appealed to women. Both sexes, it seems, tend to be gullible about things they don’t know or care much about… We don’t even look at scientific data critically if they support our biased beliefs and stereotypes about some group.
In the next section, we will introduce some concepts about which Aronson is highly unlikely to know anything whatsoever. They are relevant to the context of understanding that can determine, or at least affect, the success or failure of any of any initiative designed to inform, motivate, and persuade people to change their view of themselves or others. The formula for social improvement laid out in Principles of Social Psychology as described above should include these and perhaps many other considerations of which Neo-sociopsychology is unaware but that can provide The Plan with authority, elevate its chances of success, and open the door to considering other, possibly better, avenues for achieving their goals.
