A fun surprise to see our definition decorating the elevator (see comments below), and then, the huge portraits glowing in the main hall at a conference for philanthropists this weekend.
In an era of political tribalism, what we say and what we believe can diverge. Todd Rose has the world’s largest data set on what Americans believe in private vs what they say in public on sensitive issues. He uses conjoint analysis to uncover private beliefs with a question format that reveals hidden beliefs.
Some notes from his opening comments:
“54% of Americans think the greatest threat to the American way of life is other Americans.”
“The level of resentment in society is shocking. 90% of Americans think society is unfair. This surpasses the prior peak, which was during the Great Depression. This hinders our ability to cooperate and shifts us cognitively to a fear-based stance. ‘Who is the cause of my resentment?’”
“The brain has a bad shortcut for deducing group consensus: it’s the loudest voice repeated the most. On X, 80% of the content is generated by 10% of users and they are not at all representative. Fringe voices become collective illusions.”
TLDR; “everyone is lying.”
Among his findings:
• At the peak, 60% of Democrats said they support defunding the police. In private, it was just 9%. “They don’t believe it but thought they needed to believe it.”
• The majority of Republicans say the Biden election was stolen. Only 14% do in private.
• 60% of Gen Z Americans say Hamas was justified. Only 12% agree in private. “It’s a lifestyle choice. Most don’t believe it.”
“State actors understand the game and create a false consensus. We have root access proof that China was manipulating the Tik Tok algorithm to increase antisemitism.”
“The nature of propaganda has changed so dramatically, we need new strategies to fight it.”
“The good news is that Americans are actually in agreement on most contentious topics. Most Americans are on the same side of an issue 80% of the time in private. We just need to reveal these truths to disrupt the collective illusions.”
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