Imagine if Sean Hannity spouted incredibly liberal viewpoints. Sounds crazy, but a college professor figured out a way to make it happen and then measured the impact that would have on his viewers.
On this bonus episode of The New Abnormal, Majority Minority author Justin Gest, a George Mason University professor, breaks down a sociological experiment he conducted for his book.
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Specifically, he examined “this idea that when someone who you identify with, someone who you trust and think of as like yourself, tells you something that is counterintuitive, that you are actually more likely to be persuaded than if you were to be proposed the same kind of ideas otherwise.”
In the experiment’s case, scientists used a deepfake version of Hannity in video format, as well as a video version of a figure named John Wagner, a fake chairman of the Republican party, to talk favorably about immigration.
Guest breaks down the results in the episode but a big takeaway was this: Viewers adopted more liberal views on the topic.
So what’s the point? According to Gest, it’s a clue to getting through to people on the other side of the political spectrum.
“We rely so much on the signaling of partisanship that it’s really actually creating this gridlock,” he says. “The way to break through is not to reject the other side, ignore them and vilify them, but actually maybe to embrace them.”
As co-host Molly Jong-Fast points out, the real Hannity is not likely to change his views. But this experiment shows that people on the right can change their minds even without Hannity—as long as someone they trust, from their side of the spectrum, is doing the talking.
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