Pop-Psy Article

Have you ever had a political view that you believed was absolute or irrefutable, or had strong views on society that you thought couldnt be altered? Well, guess again. It doesn't matter if you're a communist or a capitalist, an eco-terrorist or an eco-fascist. We are all susceptible to have our political views altered with just a tad of deception and dishonesty, which often politicians do execute. Remember when president Obama promised on left leaning ideas on his first election and then promised right leaning ideas on his second? He used the sleight-of-hand technique to quickly change peoples political opinions with his power of rhetoric. Many researchers have indicated that it is possible to alter political opinions simply by preforming a political sleight-of-hand strategy. A study was conducted in Lund University, Sweden to further explore this topic. A research team from the Lund University in Sweden developed a thesis that supported the idea of human susceptibility of alterations of political perspectives. In order to investigate this topic they took a scientific approach which included a comprehensive procedure. The researchers ask 162 people about a number of controversial political issues. Once a subject filled out his/her opinion the researcher would quickly swap their response sheet with one that was very different from their original selections. Then the subject would be asked if the swapped response sheet was theirs. Not noticing that their original choices were altered, the subjects would respond with yes. The research concluded that the subjects could easily be

manipulated to believing that they chose certain political standpoints, thus enabling social media, politicians and television to possess the power to change ones belief. These studies coexist with other numerous studies. One of which is called the door study. The door study was based on an experiment that involved cleverly swapping a person with someone else during a conversation with a stranger. What this demonstrates is the potential for humans to not notice change, which also supports the study on shifting political attitudes. Quite often human beings cannot process what their senses pick up quickly enough, leading to a manipulation of their perceptions. This was the similarity between the two studies: human inability to interpret quick changes in their surroundings. Another aspect that both experiments employed was having an authority figure. People respond differently to a person with authority, such as the man asking for directions and the researcher asking for peoples political views. These authoritarians are given respect and people tend to submit to their theories; therefore, we become more susceptible to deception. Another experiment that supports this thesis is the Choice Blindness for Reasoning research paper. In this paper, it explains the lack of the access of selfreasoning and how it inhibits an individual to reason rationally. This correlates with the thesis, in which a lack of critical reasoning will affect your attitudes of choice. If we have an inability to understand our own reasoning then how can we interpret our own political philosophies? This creates a doubt in our own decisions, hence, clouding our social ideologies. This in turn directly relates to the Swedish experiment because unclear reasoning leads to uncertainties that can be taken advantage of.

In conclusion, political views can be refutable and tangible. We are all susceptible to changing opinions on how a society should be run. These assumptions become trivial once we scratch the thin veneer of the human mind; we are all susceptible by it and we are all victims of it.