New Principles of War by Marvin Pokrant

Author:Marvin Pokrant [Marvin Pokrant]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Psychological Factors

Successful deception relies on the application of psychological factors and a knowledge of the enemy’s susceptibility to believe various things. If a deception exploits enemy psychological weaknesses, the deception need not be perfect to work. Because human beings are prone to various biases, the enemy will sometimes do much of the work by deceiving themselves.

The human brain has evolved various mechanisms to help interpret the complexity of the world. In the evolutionary past of homo sapiens, these mechanisms generally proved their value. However, some of these mechanisms result in a tendency to see and interpret evidence in a manner that distorts reality under some circumstances. Psychologists have identified many such biases that show up repeatedly and predictably. These are general guides to human behavior, but are not fixed rules. Here we discuss a few that have relevance to military deception.

One part of “confirmation bias” is the tendency of people to interpret evidence in a way that supports their beliefs. A second part is that people look for evidence to support their beliefs and overvalue that evidence when they find it. They are inclined to ignore or distort information that contradicts their expectations. As they gather more and more “confirming” evidence, they become ever more adamant in their beliefs.55 The more critical the situation, the more likely it is that people go into denial about any contradictory information.

The “anchoring effect” is the tendency for the first piece of evidence people obtain to influence them excessively because this information then serves as the reference point with which they compare subsequent information.56 It then follows that stronger evidence is required to change a person’s perceptions than to form an initial perception. People form perceptions quickly but resist changing those perceptions. The more strongly people hold their beliefs, the harder it is for them to change their views. Furthermore, ambiguous evidence affects people’s perceptions even after better information becomes available.

The order in which a person receives evidence matters because early information has a greater impact than that received later. The astounding thing is that this is true even for information that is later discredited.57 The tendency for misinformation to continue to influence us even after the wrong information is corrected is called the “continued influence effect.”58

“Cognitive dissonance” is the psychological discomfort you feel when new information contradicts what you know or believe. The dissonance increases with the strength of your commitment to your belief, the degree of logical inconsistency, the number of inconsistent facts, and the relative importance you place on the discrepant cognition. The theory of cognitive dissonance says that this dissonance creates unpleasant psychological tension. This is not a trivial factor; the desire to eliminate this tension is similar to the drive to eliminate hunger or thirst.59

When the change in beliefs necessary to reconcile the new information is significant, the psychological impact is great. People are surprisingly capable of interpreting “clearly” contradictory facts in such a way as to support their strongly held beliefs. The drive to eliminate dissonance initially manifests

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