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window.onload?d:function(){c(),d()}}window.twttr=function(){var a=window.twttr||{},b={src:"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js",attrs:{id:"twitter-wjs"}};if(!document.getElementById(b.attrs.id))return globalUtils.getExternalScript(b),a._e=[],a.ready=function(b){a._e.push(b)},a}()}(),window.onunload=function(){window.scrollTo(0,0)};</script><script>try { fbs_settings.content = {"id":"content_56815820e4b08dc4ac7fe164","naturalId":"blogAndPostId/blog/post/2333-3318","generatedId":"fggg45ggel","source":"blogs","author":"Peter Ubel","title":"Is Your Politically Extreme Uncle Independent-Minded Or Mindless? Behavioral Economics Offers Answer","date":1451318640000,"timestamp":1451319898771,"body":"<p>We Americans live in a polarized world, with Republicans and Democrats seemingly further apart on the issues of the day than they have ever been. For example, in 2011 a stage full of Republican presidential hopefuls <a href=\"http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_08/tentoone_isnt_good_enough_for031484.php\" target=\"_blank\">was asked</a> whether they would support a bill raising taxes by $1 for every $10 reduction in federal spending. No one raised their hand. I expect we would see similar hesitancy from the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, if candidates were asked whether they would support a bill that raises taxes $10 for every $1 cut in federal spending (unless of course those cuts were from the military budget).\r\n\r\nAmerican politics appears to be populated by extremists.\r\n\r\nAnd yet most of us Americans are politically moderate. We head home for the holidays and hear our crazy uncle ranting about the evil of the government/the banks, listen to him decry government entitlements/income inequality, sit bewildered while he spins conspiracy theories about Obama’s birthplace/Koch brother contributions, and we ask ourselves: What is wrong with him?!?\r\n\r\nNew research utilizing a famous behavioral economic finding poses a fascinating answer.\r\n\r\nThe research explores to potential explanations for what characterizes political extremists. It tests whether extremists are mindless, a phenomenon social scientists call the <em>unthinking-extremist perspective</em>. (Think: Steven Colbert’s character from the Comedy Central days.) By this view, extremists don’t think about issues, they just feel their way to their political opinions. Supporting this view is research demonstrating that political candidates with extreme views use less complex language then other candidates, and show less tolerance for ambiguity–their world  has to be as simple as black and white or they are out of their element.\r\n\r\nThe research explores another possibility, too–that extremists are more thoughtful and independent-minded than those with less extreme views. This <em>confident-extremist perspective</em> is supported by research supporting that political extremists spend more time consuming information about politics than others, and consequently score higher on measures of political knowledge.\r\n\r\nTo tease apart these two possibilities, the researchers turned to a famous finding from behavioral economics, what Daniel Kahneman calls the <a href=\"http://www.peterubel.com/behavioral_economics/anchoring-heuristic-courtesy-dilbert/\" target=\"_blank\">anchoring heuristic</a>. To illustrate this behavioral phenomenon, try to answer the following question (without googling the answer):\r\n\r\nQuestion: More than 1,000 babies are born per day in the U.S. What’s your best guess of the number born in the world each day?\r\n\r\nAccording to UNICEF the answer is around 350,000. Whether your answer was close or not, I bet your answer was influenced by the anchor I inserted in the question, the seemingly innocuous “more than 1,000” figure. I could have changed many people’s guesses by asking the question another way:\r\n\r\nQuestion: Fewer than 10 million babies are born per day in the world. What’s your best guess of the number born in the world each day?\r\n\r\nThose of you with this 10 million figure in your heads would have guessed, on average, significantly higher birth numbers than those anchored, instead, on the number 1,000. Our numerical judgments for facts not at our fingertips are often influenced by arbitrary anchors.\r\n\r\nBut not all of us are as susceptible to anchoring as others. It is this individual variation in susceptibility that the researchers explored to illuminate the mindset of political extremists.\r\n\r\nIf extremists are mindless, they should be more susceptible to anchors than non-extremists. If instead they are independent-minded, they should be less weighed by these anchors. What do you predict the researchers found?\r\n\r\nThey discovered that political extremists on average were less influenced by anchors than non-extremists. Here is a picture of the results illustrating how far people deviated from anchors when making numerical guesses. If you follow the figure from left to right, you will see that political moderates stay closer to the anchor than extremists from either political party:\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3320\" align=\"\" width=\"961\"]<img class=\"size-full wp-image-3320\" src=\"http://blogs-images.forbes.com/peterubel/files/2015/12/Is-Your-Politically-Extreme-Uncle-Independent-Minded-or-Mindless.jpg\" alt=\"The Unthinking or Confident Extremist? By Mark Brandt (Psychological Science) \"> The Unthinking or Confident Extremist? By Mark Brandt (Psychological Science)[/caption]\r\n\r\nDoes this finding mean that political extremists are simply smarter than the rest of us? Not at all. Instead, a follow-up experiment showed that extremists are probably less influenced by anchors not because they are more knowledgeable about the questions at hand, but because they are simply more confident that their beliefs are superior. This confidence means that they shrug off suggestions that deviate from their intuition. Now, confidence can be a very positive personality trait. But it doesn’t always benefit people who hold such confidence. <a href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23211778\" target=\"_blank\">Consider research</a> I conducted with Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, showing that political extremists with a modicum of political knowledge can be resistant to efforts to debunk blatantly false political talking points. If you threaten the veracity of a belief they hold true, many knowledgeable extremists will find a way to hold on to their views, regardless of whether their views are true.\r\n\r\nA few words of caution are in order. This anchoring study is just one lens through which to view the mindset of political extremists versus non-extremists. There’s a lot more going on here than confidence and diminished susceptibility to anchoring. What I like about the anchoring study, however, is that the researchers found differences between extremists and non-extremists even in a set of surveys focused exclusively on nonpolitical topics, like how many babies are born each year. It’s one thing to show that political extremists hold onto political views, but it is really impressive to show that they are stubborn about abandoning their intuitions about the number of babies born in the world each day!\r\n<p class=\"tweet_line\">[tweet_quote display=\"Political divisions aren't just a result of political differences but result from variations in how we form judgments\"]Our political divisions are not simply a result of political differences. They also result from variations in the way we form our judgments.[/tweet_quote]</p><p class=\"tweet_line\">[tweet_quote display=\"The mindset that contributes to your uncle's political extremism probably influences more than just his politics.\"]If your uncle is a crazy political extremist, the mindset that contributes to his extremism probably influences more than just his politics.[/tweet_quote]</p>","description":"We Americans live in a polarized world, with Republicans and Democrats seemingly further apart on the issues of the day than they have ever been. 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My newest book, Critical Decisions (HarperCollins), explores the challenges of shared decision making between doctors and patients.","smallAvatar":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=40&d=mm&r=g","largestAvatar":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=400&d=mm&r=g","mediumAvatar":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=62&d=mm&r=g","largeAvatar":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=136&d=mm&r=g","largerAvatar":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=400&d=mm&r=g"},"topics":["health","pharma-and-health","business","small-business-roundtable","washington","the-economy","healthcare--fiscal","powering-productivity","lifestyle","healthcare-innovation","media--entertainment","wall-street"],"recentActivityCount":1,"latestActivityDate":1447684380000,"dailyActivityCount":0,"displayChannel":"business","displaySection":"pharma","shortUri":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://onforb.es/12ljf7h","slug":"peterubel","contributorSince":1344262858000,"showNoVestPocket":false,"embargo":false,"enableContribContact":false,"enableTwitterFeed":false,"disableCanonical":false,"disableDigest":false}],"channelSection":[{"channelId":"channel_1"},{"channelId":"channel_1","sectionId":"section_4"}],"slug":"Bedside Matters","blogType":"individual","sitePage":"forbes.com/business/blogs/peterubel/index.html","displayChannel":"business","displaySection":"pharma","relatedContentList":[{"uri":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2015/12/28/piracy-group-pulls-out-of-plans-for-huge-set-of-movie-releases/","title":"Piracy Group Pulls Out Of Plans For Huge Set Of Movie Releases"},{"uri":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2015/12/28/the-best-pre-star-wars-the-force-awakens-trailer-wasnt-batman-v-superman-or-x-men/","title":"The Best Pre-'Star Wars: The Force Awakens' Trailer Wasn't 'Batman V Superman' Or 'X-Men'"}],"primaryChannelId":"channel_1","primarySectionId":"section_4","vestPocketList":[{"naturalId":"blogAndSlideId/blog/slide/1989-21039","type":"slide","uri":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://www.forbes.com/pictures/emlm45fedgm/alabama/","image":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/553ff6e9e4b0bacdbd74ae81/","imageExists":false,"title":"The Richest Person In Every State","count":96395,"reason":"MP-G"},{"naturalId":"blogAndPostId/blog/post/1742-22440","type":"blogslide","uri":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/12/30/iphone-s6-edge-priv-smartphone-of-the-year-2015/","image":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://blogs-images.forbes.com/ewanspence/files/2015/02/iphone_case_feb2015_square-500x500.jpg","imageExists":false,"title":"Forget The iPhone 6S And Avoid Samsung's Galaxy S6 Edge, Here Is Your Smartphone...","count":194955,"reason":"PV-D"},{"naturalId":"blogAndSlideId/blog/slide/2681-8902","type":"slide","uri":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://www.forbes.com/pictures/fjle45lmdf/the-10-best-states-to-ma/","image":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5550c3b7e4b0bacdbd750019/","imageExists":false,"title":"The 10 Best And Worst States To Make A Living In 2015","count":70798,"reason":"MP-G"},{"type":"video","uri":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://www.forbes.com/video/4673235267001/","image":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://i.forbesimg.com/media/video/2015/12/23/4673235267001_still.jpg","imageExists":false,"title":"Hollywood's 5 Most Overpaid Actors","count":29698,"reason":"MP-V"}],"vestPocketPosition":6,"newsKeywords":["Business","Pharma and Health","Pharma & Healthcare","Policy"],"pageViews":0,"preview":false,"showComments":true,"commentCount":2,"calledOutCommentCount":0,"siteSlug":"peterubel","shortUri":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://onforb.es/1OoTtoc","showNoVestPocket":false,"templateType":"standard","enableSigfile":false,"tweetQuotes":["<span class=\"tweet_quote\"> <a href=https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fonforb.es%2F1OoTtoc&text=Political%20divisions%20aren%27t%20just%20a%20result%20of%20political%20differences%20but%20result%20from%20variations%20in%20how%20we%20form%20judgments target=\"_blank\" data-track=\"article-tweet-quote\">Our political divisions are not simply a result of political differences. They also result from variations in the way we form our judgments.<span></span></a></span>","<span class=\"tweet_quote\"> <a href=https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fonforb.es%2F1OoTtoc&text=The%20mindset%20that%20contributes%20to%20your%20uncle%27s%20political%20extremism%20probably%20influences%20more%20than%20just%20his%20politics. target=\"_blank\" data-track=\"article-tweet-quote\">If your uncle is a crazy political extremist, the mindset that contributes to his extremism probably influences more than just his politics.<span></span></a></span>"],"primaryChannel":{"id":"channel_1","channelId":"channel_1","channelName":"Business","sectionName":"Pharma & Healthcare","url":"/healthcare"},"pages":["<p>We Americans live in a polarized world, with Republicans and Democrats seemingly further apart on the issues of the day than they have ever been. For example, in 2011 a stage full of Republican presidential hopefuls <a href=\"http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal/2011_08/tentoone_isnt_good_enough_for031484.php\" target=\"_blank\">was asked</a> whether they would support a bill raising taxes by $1 for every $10 reduction in federal spending. No one raised their hand. I expect we would see similar hesitancy from the Bernie Sanders wing of the Democratic Party, if candidates were asked whether they would support a bill that raises taxes $10 for every $1 cut in federal spending (unless of course those cuts were from the military budget).</p>\n<p>American politics appears to be populated by extremists.</p>\n<p>And yet most of us Americans are politically moderate. We head home for the holidays and hear our crazy uncle ranting about the evil of the government/the banks, listen to him decry government entitlements/income inequality, sit bewildered while he spins conspiracy theories about Obama’s birthplace/Koch brother contributions, and we ask ourselves: What is wrong with him?!?</p>\n<p>New research utilizing a famous behavioral economic finding poses a fascinating answer.</p>\n<p>The research explores to potential explanations for what characterizes political extremists. It tests whether extremists are mindless, a phenomenon social scientists call the <em>unthinking-extremist perspective</em>. (Think: Steven Colbert’s character from the Comedy Central days.) By this view, extremists don’t think about issues, they just feel their way to their political opinions. Supporting this view is research demonstrating that political candidates with extreme views use less complex language then other candidates, and show less tolerance for ambiguity–their world  has to be as simple as black and white or they are out of their element.</p>\n<p>The research explores another possibility, too–that extremists are more thoughtful and independent-minded than those with less extreme views. This <em>confident-extremist perspective</em> is supported by research supporting that political extremists spend more time consuming information about politics than others, and consequently score higher on measures of political knowledge.</p>\n<div id=\"inread\" article-ad-inbody=\"inread\" class=\"inread\"></div>\n<p>To tease apart these two possibilities, the researchers turned to a famous finding from behavioral economics, what Daniel Kahneman calls the <a href=\"http://www.peterubel.com/behavioral_economics/anchoring-heuristic-courtesy-dilbert/\" target=\"_blank\">anchoring heuristic</a>. To illustrate this behavioral phenomenon, try to answer the following question (without googling the answer):</p>\n<p>Question: More than 1,000 babies are born per day in the U.S. What’s your best guess of the number born in the world each day?</p>","<p>According to UNICEF the answer is around 350,000. Whether your answer was close or not, I bet your answer was influenced by the anchor I inserted in the question, the seemingly innocuous “more than 1,000” figure. I could have changed many people’s guesses by asking the question another way:</p>\n<p>Question: Fewer than 10 million babies are born per day in the world. What’s your best guess of the number born in the world each day?</p>\n<p>Those of you with this 10 million figure in your heads would have guessed, on average, significantly higher birth numbers than those anchored, instead, on the number 1,000. Our numerical judgments for facts not at our fingertips are often influenced by arbitrary anchors.</p>\n<p>But not all of us are as susceptible to anchoring as others. It is this individual variation in susceptibility that the researchers explored to illuminate the mindset of political extremists.</p>\n<p>If extremists are mindless, they should be more susceptible to anchors than non-extremists. If instead they are independent-minded, they should be less weighed by these anchors. What do you predict the researchers found?</p>\n<p>They discovered that political extremists on average were less influenced by anchors than non-extremists. Here is a picture of the results illustrating how far people deviated from anchors when making numerical guesses. If you follow the figure from left to right, you will see that political moderates stay closer to the anchor than extremists from either political party:</p>\n<div id=\"inread\" article-ad-inbody=\"inread\" class=\"inread\"></div>\n<div id=\"attachment_3320\"> \n <img class=\"size-full wp-image-3320\" src=\"http://blogs-images.forbes.com/peterubel/files/2015/12/Is-Your-Politically-Extreme-Uncle-Independent-Minded-or-Mindless.jpg\" alt=\"The Unthinking or Confident Extremist? By Mark Brandt (Psychological Science) \" /> \n <p class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Unthinking or Confident Extremist? By Mark Brandt (Psychological Science)</p> \n</div>\n<p>Does this finding mean that political extremists are simply smarter than the rest of us? Not at all. Instead, a follow-up experiment showed that extremists are probably less influenced by anchors not because they are more knowledgeable about the questions at hand, but because they are simply more confident that their beliefs are superior. This confidence means that they shrug off suggestions that deviate from their intuition. Now, confidence can be a very positive personality trait. But it doesn’t always benefit people who hold such confidence. <a href=\"http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23211778\" target=\"_blank\">Consider research</a> I conducted with Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, showing that political extremists with a modicum of political knowledge can be resistant to efforts to debunk blatantly false political talking points. If you threaten the veracity of a belief they hold true, many knowledgeable extremists will find a way to hold on to their views, regardless of whether their views are true.</p>\n<div class=\"vestpocket\" vest-pocket=\"\"></div>","<p>A few words of caution are in order. This anchoring study is just one lens through which to view the mindset of political extremists versus non-extremists. There’s a lot more going on here than confidence and diminished susceptibility to anchoring. What I like about the anchoring study, however, is that the researchers found differences between extremists and non-extremists even in a set of surveys focused exclusively on nonpolitical topics, like how many babies are born each year. It’s one thing to show that political extremists hold onto political views, but it is really impressive to show that they are stubborn about abandoning their intuitions about the number of babies born in the world each day!</p>\n<p class=\"tweet_line\"><span class=\"tweet_quote\"> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fonforb.es%2F1OoTtoc&text=Political%20divisions%20aren%27t%20just%20a%20result%20of%20political%20differences%20but%20result%20from%20variations%20in%20how%20we%20form%20judgments\" target=\"_blank\">Our political divisions are not simply a result of political differences. They also result from variations in the way we form our judgments.<span></span></a></span></p>\n<p class=\"tweet_line\"><span class=\"tweet_quote\"> <a href=\"https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=http%3A%2F%2Fonforb.es%2F1OoTtoc&text=The%20mindset%20that%20contributes%20to%20your%20uncle%27s%20political%20extremism%20probably%20influences%20more%20than%20just%20his%20politics.\" target=\"_blank\">If your uncle is a crazy political extremist, the mindset that contributes to his extremism probably influences more than just his politics.<span></span></a></span></p>"],"disableDigest":false,"writtenByForbesStaff":false,"channelSectionMappings":[{"id":"channel_1","channelName":"Business","url":"/business"},{"id":"channel_1section_4","channelName":"Business","sectionName":"Pharma & Healthcare","url":"/healthcare"}],"pTagCount":18,"digestDisabled":false,"brandVoiceTitle":"Is Your Politically Extreme Uncle Independent-Minded Or Mindless? Behavioral Economics Offers Answer","groupAuthor":{"naturalId":"blogAuthorId/blog/author/blog-2333","name":"Bedside Matters","avatars":[{"size":0},{"size":0},{"size":0},{"size":0}],"url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterubel/","profileUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://blogs.forbes.com/peterubel/profile/","authorType":"individual","blog":true,"numFollowers":0,"timestamp":1451579969779,"primaryBlogNaturalId":"blogAuthorId/blog/author/blog-2333","primaryContributor":"blogAuthorId/blog/author/429187","primaryContributorData":{"naturalId":"blogAuthorId/blog/author/429187","name":"Peter Ubel","avatars":[{"size":40,"image":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=40&d=mm&r=g"},{"size":62,"image":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=62&d=mm&r=g"},{"size":136,"image":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=136&d=mm&r=g"},{"size":400,"image":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=400&d=mm&r=g"}],"blog":false,"numFollowers":0,"shortBio":"I explore medical controversies thru behavioral econ and bioethics.","description":"I am a physician and behavioral scientist at Duke University. 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My research and writing explores the quirks in human nature that influence our lives — the mixture of rational and irrational forces that affect our health, our happiness and the way our society functions. (What fun would it be to tackle just the easy problems?) I am currently exploring controversial issues about the role of values and preferences in health care decision making, from decisions at the bedside to policy decisions. I use the tools of decision psychology and behavioral economics to explore topics like informed consent, shared decision making and health care spending. My books include Pricing Life (MIT Press 2000) and Free Market Madness (Harvard Business Press, 2009). 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Latest book--Critical Decisions (HarperOne)","createdDate":1338371052000,"location":"Duke University","url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://t.co/8k0QK4l3Eh","expandedUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://www.peterubel.com","displayUrl":"peterubel.com","verified":false},"disableCanonical":false,"disableDigest":false,"smallAvatar":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=40&d=mm&r=g","largestAvatar":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=400&d=mm&r=g","mediumAvatar":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=62&d=mm&r=g","largeAvatar":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=136&d=mm&r=g","largerAvatar":"https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524/http://2.gravatar.com/avatar/239b4d0d3cdd843692c6608f11de1fad?s=400&d=mm&r=g"}}; } catch(err) { fbs_settings.content = null; }</script><script>try { fbs_settings.ads = {"site":"fdc.forbes","zone":"article-d"}; } catch(err) { fbs_settings.ads = null; }</script><script>try { fbs_settings.promoted_content = {}; } catch(err) { fbs_settings.promoted_content = null; }</script><body class="js-contrib" ng-class="{'csr-body': is_csr, 'pinterest-sidebar-open': article_sidebar}"><script type="text/javascript">if (isIe() && isIe() === 'MSIE') { document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0].setAttribute('class', 'js-contrib ie'); }</script><div id="main-content" fbs-breakpoint-monitor="" module-resolver=""></div><script src="https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524js_/http://i.forbesimg.com/forbes/scripts/62ec2afb.vendor.js"></script><script src="https://web.archive.org/web/20151231164524js_/http://i.forbesimg.com/forbes/scripts/00941d22.scripts.js"></script><div id="css-js-dynamic"><span class="dynamic-css">false</span> <span class="dynamic-js"></span></div><div ng-if="!$root.is_mobile" id="teconsent"></div><script>$(window).on("touchstart", function(e){});</script>