Belief Does Not Equal Action

Posted by Clark Williams-Derry

11/10/2008 06:00 AM

Belief and behavior don't always add up.

From The New Yorker, a clear case where behavior and attitudes don't match up:

The vast majority of white evangelical adolescents—seventy-four per cent—say that they believe in abstaining from sex before marriage....Moreover, among the major religious groups, evangelical virgins are the least likely to anticipate that sex will be pleasurable, and the most likely to believe that having sex will cause their partners to lose respect for them...But...among major religious groups, only black Protestants begin having sex earlier.

So here's a group that has strong, clear beliefs: sex before marriage is morally wrong, unpleasant, and shameful. And yet, on average, kids with "save it until marriage" beliefs become sexually active sooner than most of their peers.

There may not be any broad lesson here. These are adolescents, after all; and when I was a teenager, I wasn't particularly rational either. Still, if there's a broader point, it's this: often enough, beliefs simply don't translate into action.

Here's one application of this idea. Convincing people that you're right about an issue--say, the scientific consensus about the threat posed by global warming--can seem vitally important, but in the end may be somewhat beside the point. People may well agree with you, but still not act in accordance with those beliefs.

That's more or less what's happening all around the globe: the solidifying consensus, both among elites and the public at large, is that global warming is real. And yet climate-warming emissions are still distressingly high. Macroeconomic trends have more effect on emissions than do individual beliefs.

Perhaps, convincing people about the merit of your position is only a baby step to creating change. In the long run, you have to move the debate beyond beliefs, and into incentives: lining up the economic and social incentives such that the right choices are the easy, natural ones To do that, we need smart and effective policies. Appeals to people's reason may help, but rational belief alone won't carry the day.

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Comments

Posted by Barry 11/10/2008 11:59 AM

There is a circular reinforcement here too.

One of the reasons that "red states" care more about teen sex, teen pregnancy, abortions and divorce is because they experience a lot more of it in their communities. It is a bigger problem in their lives. So it is reasonable they care about it more.

The solutions they turn to, however, have been shown to often make it worse:

* do as we say not as we do
* lack of information and discussion

Lack of information and discussion leads to poor choices which leads to negative role modelling. Round and round.

A recent survey showing teen sex correlated to how much sex teens watch on TV is a similar negative role modelling example.

So it is possible to have a different take away message on climate change i think. What might be needed is: greater discussion of the information (sadly lacking even among MIT students in recent study) and better role modelling. What probably won't work is: "do what we say not what we do" combined with restricted information and discussion.

Under-informed teens watching sex everywhere are not going to vote to curtail their sexual opportunities. Under-informed fossil-fuel bingers watching fossil-fuel excess everywhere are not going to vote to curtail their fossil fuel opportunities.

Posted by Clark Williams-Derry 11/10/2008 03:45 PM

Barry -

*Very* smart points.

Posted by Sarah Zaenger 11/12/2008 08:15 AM

I agree that it's a tough fight to move people from attitude to action. A wise teacher once told me that there is a four step process to behavior change: Motivate- Inspire- Empower- Challenge. If people have the motivation and even the inspiration to act, they need to feel capable of making changes in daily habits and decisions they make. Then, they must be continuously challenged towards the cause. Anyone can realize recycling is good, for example, recognize that they should recycle their water bottle, see the recycle bin in the room and drop it in once. It's the continuous challenge of: "Do I rinse out containers and put them in a separate bag for the recycle bin each day," that causes the true challenge.

I was inspired by this article, and appreciate the challenge of thinking about the questions forces us to ask.

Posted by Sarah Zaenger 11/12/2008 08:17 AM

Posted by morgan 11/14/2008 09:19 AM

Clark, I’m pleased you raised the question “what steps create change?” This is a huge topic where the answers and the follow-up questions vary widely depending where you explore. Consider government, business and consumer choice.

Since government decisions are often made by a very limited set of people and since government exercises a degree of moral obligation to its citizens, making a compelling ethical case is sometimes sufficient, and financial arguments can be effective too. Businesses often focus on price information once issues of compliance are satisfied, because they tend to have sophisticated methods of making accurate choices based on price and effects upon branding and risk.

Ordinary people, on the other hand, make decisions based on a wide range of fluid parameters that related to their beliefs, economic class, educational background, etc. Individually, we tend to have very poor access to price-based decision making tools. Behavior economics point out that our choices are more based on factors like habit and culture than on price. I usually get a laugh out of Thomas Frank’s “What's the Matter with Kansas” for pointing out such ‘irrationality’ in the conventional sense.

My point is that the tool one employs to stimulate change will be context sensitive, if it is to be effective.

Posted by Nermal 12/12/2008 11:46 AM

Could this also be an example of the Bradley Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bradley_effect) wherein people tend to report to pollsters what is expected of them? If I was an evangelical adolescent I wouldn't tell anyone what I wanted to do to the lead cheerleader for fear it might get back to pops.