I read up on the internet somewhere about inoculation theory, got curious and looked up Wikipedia, which says,
“Inoculation theory is a social psychological/communication theory that explains how an attitude or belief can be protected against persuasion or influence in much the same way a body can be protected against disease–for example, through preexposure to weakened versions of a stronger, future threat.”
I understand the disease analogy, but cannot relate with attitude/belief.
[Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inoculation_theory)
In: Other
Examples in the Wikipedia page were:
Providing illogical arguments, to expose people to logical fallacies, so they can better recognize them in the future.
Making children peer pressure each other, so they can learn to recognize peer pressure.
Manipulating people into doing things online, so they can recognize how cyber criminals operate.
Say you have a child who you want to make believe in a magical wizard who lives in the clouds and has nothing better to do than judge every living person continually.
If you expose this child to strong, logical arguments against this wizard they are more likely to believe the arguments and reject the magical wizard.
However, if you start off by exposing them to people who are just *angry* about the magical wizard and yell at the child for even entertaining the idea of a magical wizard the child will react negatively to all future ideas that are contrary to the wizard because they will be reminded(at least unconsciously) of the negative emotions they got from being yelled at by the angry person. This will make it more difficult for the strong, logical arguments to take hold so the child will continue to believe in the wizard
Inoculation theory isn’t really lying to protect the truth. Instead it’s more about building confidence, although Im sure it’s abused.
Lets say I believe that the Earth is flat. Obviously there is very strong evidence to refute this claim. So instead I take in smaller arguments that the theory can handle. This is essentially what youtube videos that argue in favor of the flat Earth are trying to do.
“If the moon reflects the sun’s light, then why is it measurably colder in direct moonlight rather than everywhere at night?”
“Why does my very expensive looking my-little-scientist.com gyroscope not spin with the Earths axis?”
“Why can’t you see a curve when looking at the ground?”
These questions have more difficult answers that require mathematics and stronger reasoning skills, so it feels like the answers are simple to a flat Earther. This builds up confidence and therefore builds up the strength of your beliefs. This can be used for good though. Easy questions help you gain confidence against harder questions. Thats what mental training and meditation on subjects help you achieve.
Basically a person holds a belief that needs to be “inoculated”. What happens is a *counter* argument is given to them that says their belief is wrong…but that argument is simplistic and paired with a reasonable explanation as to why the actual belief is true and the counter argument is false.
The subject sees how easily the (simplistic) counter argument is refuted and gains confidence in their original belief. This process continues with the counter arguments (and refutations) getting more and more complex.
Eventually the subject is essentially inoculated against having their mind changed. They will believe what they believe no matter what you say because they have witnessed argument after argument against it get refuted. Even if those arguments and refutations are full of holes, it doesn’t matter. As long as there is the appearance that the counter argument is defeated it works.
For example:
This tactic was used by the LGBT community to cause the American public accept homosexual marriage. They targeted a younger generation and inoculated them against the thought that gay marriage is wrong. There are some very valid arguments against gay marriage (for example the government shouldn’t be in the “marriage business” at all gay or straight) but by the time the question was put to vote the voting public was inoculated meaning it didn’t matter *what* argument was raised against it, they were going to believe it anyway.
Another example would be Christianity. Most people are exposed to overly simplistic versions of Christianity and then those arguments for it are refuted and mocked. As time wears on the arguments against it get moderately more complex and are refuted. Eventually they get to the point that it doesn’t matter if a very good sound argument for it’s existence is raised or not, (which there are) they will not believe it no matter what.
This theory can be used to convince people to believe something (as in the first example) or convince people *not* to believe something (as in the second example) depending on the desired outcome. It’s worth noting that a public that is inoculated will hold a belief even if it’s irrational to do so or illogical.
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