First impressions matter. And they tend to stick. In fact, research shows that we are more
likely to remember and believe the first statement we hear about any particular
subject. It's called the primacy effect,
and it's based on Hermann Ebbinghaus' "forgetting curve" developed in
1885. (Murre, J. & Dros, J., 2015)
We also know that once a first impression has been
formed it is very difficult to alter it as we tend to ignore information that
contradicts it. That is because we are
trying to avoid that uncomfortable feeling we get when we have to deal with
conflicting beliefs. We call that
"cognitive dissonance."
It's so uncomfortable that we choose to ignore
conflicting evidence, and stick with our original belief, even if the argument
against it is a strong one.
That's why it is so important to be the first to
raise a subject. The majority of the
people will believe what you say. But it
also means that others will not be able to simply take a different stance, but
must instead try to convince people to change their minds. And as noted, that is a daunting task.
President Trump understands this well. We should be discussing the fact that the deficit
is over a trillion dollars for the second year in a row, instead we are wasting
our time discussing his latest racist remarks.
Sigh.
The only person who seems to be getting this is
AOC. In her tweets she has been raising
important issues like income inequality and forcing others to get back to
topics that matter. Kudos to her.
Now I just wish the mainstream media would get a
clue. Sure it's good for ratings and
circulation increases to make people angry and scared. But it's not good for this country. It's time to step up.
Murre, J. & Dros, J. (2015, July 6) Replication and Analysis of Ebbinghaus'
Forgetting Curve. plos.org. Retrieved July 31,
2019, from https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0120644
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