Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

As the article points out there are potentially important if not stark implications for democracy. At the same time the study does not appear to cover the practice of dialogue, which could be interesting to investigate as another source of learning about new facts. Does a conversation directly with someone with a different perspective change the way we react to new information compared to exposure to other data sources such as news articles or sound bites?

From “Talk Deeply, Be Happy?” in The New York Times’ “Well” blog (3/17/10), by Roni Caryn Rabin:

It may sound counter-intuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona who published a study on the subject.

“We found this so interesting, because it could have gone the other way — it could have been, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ — as long as you surf on the shallow level of life you’re happy, and if you go into the existential depths you’ll be unhappy,” Dr. Mehl said.

As noted in the full blog post, we were intrigued by the findings and implications that deeper conversations may bring more happiness than easier paths of keeping things “light.” There may be something hardwired into us as humans – a craving for meaningful connection, perhaps – a need that must be fulfilled for us to be…fulfilled.

Read the complete post, with additional links, here.

A team of researchers found that when people were in a room recently spritzed with a citrus-scented cleanser, they behaved more fairly when playing a classic trust game…

…a smell can provoke a mental leap between cleanliness and morality, making people think differently about the world around them.

And how about modifying brain waves? A new study reported in MITnews looked at the use of magnets to influence the brain and moral judgements (although not necessarily to positive effect).

“You think of morality as being a really high-level behavior,” [Liane Young, lead author] says. “To be able to apply (a magnetic field) to a specific brain region and change people’s moral judgments is really astonishing.”

Hat tip to Tim Bonnemann at Intellitics.

BeyondTolerance.org is a partnership with Education as Transformation (EasT) at Wellesley College.

The early warning systems can be informal phone trees. For example one person I talked with at a university served as a receiver of warning texts from a group of 20 people in the city of Jos. When his contacts in Jos heard of new or impending problem they would send him a short text message with information about the issue and location. This information can be forwarded to the police if deemed important, who can then take steps to intervene to lessen an outbreak of violence already happening or to prevent one from breaking out. If the 20 contacts in a community are also collecting news from say 50-100 people, that’s a network of 1000-2000 people who can provide actionable intelligence. If one organization at the top of the tree has several people each connected to 20 others on the ground, and their respective networks, one can see how a fairly basic early warning network can have a deep reach into a conflict area.

At the same time, this ability to scale quickly and easily can be used to the opposite effect by those seeking to stoke the flames of anger and violence through false rumors and reports. Here is an article discussing the destructive use of text messaging in Jos.

The good and bad challenge of technology, which unfortunately is historical and found in numerous conflicts, came up in conversation during our visit as well since we were presenting ideas for utilizing technology for increased dialogue and community building. One idea we would like to explore further is the use of centralized networks to provide a positive force against the malicious use of technology. For example, if all the text messaging activity went through a central network, that would provide the ability to provide some level of moderation of malicious content, either by flagging false rumors or by marginalizing the malicious information. The latter can be accomplished in two ways: the false rumors will likely stand out in relation to other, more valid information flowing through the network, or the rumors will be sent outside the network and thus may not have the same legitimacy. The system doesn’t have to be perfect, but the centralized network would provide a certain type of transparency that could lessen the impact of malicious texting.

A major assumption here is that the central site could be trusted by all sides of a conflict, which itself is a real challenge. But if the alternative is destruction there may be incentives for all parties to see the value of information validation and thus have a vested interest in centralizing modes of online and text-based communication. We would welcome any thoughts or suggestions and pointers to research that has been done in this area.

Among the many inspirational conversations during the trip, one topic that came up was rather simple yet also powerful: the notion that dialogue in and of itself is in fact a very effective action.  The threat of violence in Nigeria is real, whether due to historic ethnic tensions, political and economic conflicts or religious identities (in fact we arrived shortly after an outbreak of violence in Jos). While these conflicts have deep and complex roots which may take time to resolve, providing opportunities simply for dialogue can have a significant impact on how a potential conflict unfolds, slowing the possibility of people engaging in violence and thus creating time and space for other more positive actions and new ideas to take hold. People who have had the opportunity to talk with those on the other side will have reason to pause and think before engaging in destructive actions.

In this way dialogue for the sake of dialogue is actually a very powerful action, with the potential for significant impact on impending threats of violence and saving lives. Dialogue does not need to result in specific agreements or action items, rather the ability to build relationships and hear other people can play an important role in conflict mitigation. It was exciting to see first hand in Nigeria, through organizations such as the Interfaith Mediation Centre in Kaduna (see The Imam and the Pastor), that dialogue is not “just talking” but an important part of a conflict toolkit and building society. Similarly, this potential points the way to utilizing dialogue in other less extreme situations where conversation and relationship building could have a positive impact (e.g. domestic policy development).

It sounds like the start of a joke: a rabbi, a minister and a Muslim sheik walk into a restaurant.

But what follows is an enlightening article about the power of dialogue in addressing difficult issues and developing stronger relationships.

The three say they became close not by avoiding or glossing over their conflicts, but by running straight at them. They put everything on the table: the verses they found offensive in one another’s holy books, anti-Semitism, violence in the name of religion, claims by each faith to have the exclusive hold on truth, and, of course, Israel.