Find the google doc for this chapter for easier editing here: 

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zb90jFCN_0iS1MRFkMykcnopl3nFMIFPHbXMIwgyZSw/edit?usp=sharing

• Critical Thinking Problems 

• https://socialsci.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Political_Science_and_Civics/Introduction_to_Political_Science_Research_Methods_(Franco_et_al.)/04:_Theories_Hypotheses_Variables_and_Units

4.8: Critical Thinking Problems

• Josue Franco, Charlotte Lee, Kau Vue, Dino Bozonelos, Masahiro Omae, & Steven Cauchon

• ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)

Summary of Section 4.1: Correlation and Causation

Causation and correlation are important to political science. Correlation establishes connections between ideas, actors, institutions, and processes while causation establishes a causal connection. Because connections are established does not mean that the connection is a causal one; correlation does not equal causation. Correlation is, however, one condition of causality along with logical time ordering, mechanism, and non-spuriousness. When these four conditions are met, a causal connection is possible.

Summary of Section 4.2: Theory Construction

A theory is an explanation of how the world works. It is a set of assumptions about constants, variables, and the relationship between variables. Generating a theory can occur in three ways: without referencing existing theory, extending an existing theory, or contradicting an existing theory. When creating a theory, researchers should remember that theories should be general, parsimonious and falsifiable.

Summary of Section 4.3: Generating Hypotheses from Theories

A hypothesis is an if-then statement that is derived from a theory. While a theory states that there is a relationship between two concepts or objects of interest, a hypothesis declares the values of the two concepts and how the change in the value of one affects the change in the value of the second object. Hypothesis should contain three elements: units of observation, a value of the independent variable, and a value of the dependent variable.

Summary of Section 4.4: Exploring Variables

Variables are objects that vary or change due to their inherent properties. They can be placed in two categories: discrete (values we can count) and continuous (values we can measure). Discrete values can be nominal or ordinal whereas continuous variables can be interval or ratio.

Summary of Section 4.5: Units of Observation and Units of Analysis

Political scientists observe a wide range of political objects; however, these objects do not have the same purpose. Some objects are units of observation and others are units of analysis. Units of observation are the objects that a researcher is specifically observing with the goal of describing the relationship between the objects. A unit of analysis is the object that a researcher is specifically analyzing.

Summary of Section 4.6: Causal Modeling

Causal modeling is the process of visualizing the relationships between concepts of interest. It allows us to “see” the relationships between objects of interest. It can also be useful in assisting researchers to consider the possibility of other relationships between concepts.

This page titled 4.8: Critical Thinking Problems is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Josue Franco, Charlotte Lee, Kau Vue, Dino Bozonelos, Masahiro Omae, & Steven Cauchon (ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.

4.1: Correlation and Causation

• Josue Franco, Charlotte Lee, Kau Vue, Dino Bozonelos, Masahiro Omae, & Steven Cauchon

• ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Remember the definition of theory

• Understand how a theory is generated

• Apply a model theory

• Analyze increasingly complex theories

• Evaluate statements to determine if they are theories or not

• Create a theory

Before diving into theories, hypotheses, variables, and units, it’s important to highlight two broader concepts: correlation and causation. Correlation can be defined as a “process of establishing a relationship or connection between two or more measures” (“Correlation - Google Search” n.d.). For example, imagine a car is waiting at a road intersection. When the traffic light turns green, we observe the car move forward. It can be argued that there is a correlation between the color displayed on the traffic light and the movement of the vehicle. The traffic light–car example is relatively clear, but the question is: does the traffic light color cause the car to move? This question brings forward the concept of causation. Causation can be defined “as the action of causing or producing” (“Definition of Causation | Dictionary.com” n.d.). While the movement of the car corresponds to the color of the traffic light, what causes the movement of the traffic light is the driver pressing down on the accelerator pedal. Doing so, fuel is released into the engine which powers the turning of the wheels.

Why is correlation and causation important to political science? Correlation is important because it lets us establish connections between political ideas, actors, institutions, and processes. When we observe the world, our mind is primed to make connections between things. Doing so helps us give meaning to the world and develop our understanding of it.

For example, let’s explore the relationship between demographics and congressional representation. Below is a map of the United States. Each state is shaded in a color of sky-blue which denote the percentage of women who reside in each state. Using the legend in the bottom left corner of the map, we see that the lightest shade of sky-blue represents 47.9% to 50% of a state’s population is woman. The darkest shade means that women account for 51.5% to 52.6% of a state’s population. In other words, lighter shades mean a lower percentage of women and darker shades mean a higher percentage of women.

The next map of the United States displays information about the representation of women in the 116th Congress. In reviewing the map, we see variation in the number of women who represent different states. For example, we see that California has 20 women representing it in Congress. While this map doesn’t differentiate between the Senate and the House of Representatives, we know that California has two female senators and eighteen Congresswomen. You will notice that the following states have no female representation: Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah, Arkansas, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Carolina, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Maryland. 

Seeing these two maps lets us establish a connection between the two concepts represented by the maps. The question we ask ourselves is does there appear to be a correlation between the percent of women living in a state and the number of women representing that state and Congress? In reviewing both maps, it would be fair to suggest that there does appear to be a correlation between the two. For example, we see that Idaho, Montana, and the Dakotas have 50% or fewer women living in these states. Then when we look at the congressional map, we see that those states have no females representing them in Congress. Therefore, we have some evidence to suggest that there is a relationship.

In political science, we are interested in exploring this relationship further. A question we can ask ourselves is: as the percentage of women increases in a state, do we see an increase in the number of women in Congress? And using the language of causation, we could ask: do greater numbers of women cause an increase in the number of women representatives? The figure below is a visualization of a correlation between our two concepts. As we will explore later in this chapter, this is an example of what we call a causal model.

There is a commonly repeated adage that correlation does not equal causation. In political science, we take this adage to heart because it is important to be critical of what we perceive to be connections between two concepts and not making the inferential leap that one is caused by the other. Unlike our peers in the natural sciences, we study individuals, institutions, and processes that are inherently complex and intertwined. We, like most others, can be susceptible to presuming that there is a causal relationship between objects we are observing. Therefore, it is important to take to heart that correlation is a prerequisite to causation, but there are other conditions that need to be satisfied for us to make the inference of causality.

Four Conditions of Causality

There are four conditions of causality: logical time ordering, correlation, mechanism, and nonspuriousness. Logical time ordering refers to the idea that one variable needs to precede another variable in time for the first variable to influence the second variable. For example, throughout the world, people are protesting their governments. In some countries, governments respond with the metaphorical yawn. However, in other countries, the governments may respond with repressive tactics. The question is do the protest precede the government response? On its face, the answer is yes because why would the government respond to silence?

The second condition of causality is correlation. As we explored above, correlation is a connection between two variables. Correlation is a prerequisite to establishing a causal relationship because if two variables do not move together, then it is difficult to suggest that one influences the other. Maintaining our example of public protest and government response, we often see that when people protest, the government pays attention. This is due to mainstream media coverage and social media activity of the protest. Since governments typically have responsibility for maintaining peace and security, anytime there are activities that may disrupt peace, the government will likely pay attention to what the media is covering and decide whether to respond.

Our third condition of causality is mechanism. A causal mechanism is an explanation for how one variable influences the other. Explanations can vary from relatively straightforward to exhaustively complex. There is utility in employing both types of explanations to describe the influence of one variable on the next variable. The reason is it may be straightforward to some while the government responds to protesters. However, underlying this interaction, there may be other actors, decisions, and actions that may shape engagement between the government and protesters. For example, the Arab Spring starting in 2010 provides a contemporary example where people throughout countries in the Middle East publicly protested for changes in their political leadership and government systems. How did these protesters come together? Some researchers point to social media, like Facebook and Twitter, which helped people collectively organize their protesting efforts. Thus, we have a mechanism that shows how protest formed, and how that initiated reaction from governments.

The final condition of causality is non-spuriousness. Non-spuriousness means that another variable is not having an influence. With our example of protest and government response, we must be careful to consider that other factors may influence this relationship. What else could influence a government’s response to a protest within its country? A government may be hesitant to respond with lethal force if it knows it’s being observed by an international media. An international media outlet serves as a third-party observer to the activities within a country. As the media records through video and first-hand accounts, they can begin to share that information with the rest of the world. A government that uses lethal weapons on people who are peacefully protesting could result in an outcry from the international community. Thus, are protests the only thing that is influencing the government’s response? Or is there a spurious factor, such as the international media outlet, that having the government question how it should respond?

As you can see, from a running example of public protest and government action, establishing a causal relationship between two variables is difficult. The difficulty doesn’t mean we don’t work through these four conditions, both using reason and evidence, rather it represents a rigorous way to determine a causal relationship.

This page titled 4.1: Correlation and Causation is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Josue Franco, Charlotte Lee, Kau Vue, Dino Bozonelos, Masahiro Omae, & Steven Cauchon (ASCCC Open Educational Resources Initiative (OERI)) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.

14.4: Logical Fallacies

• Kris Barton & Barbara G. Tucker

• Florida State University & University of Georgia via GALILEO Open Learning Materials

The second part of achieving a logical speech is to avoid logical fallacies. Logical fallacies are mistakes in reasoning–getting one of the formulas, inductive or deductive, wrong. There are actually dozens upon dozens of fallacies, some of which have complicated Latin names. This chapter will deal with eighteen of the most common ones that you should know to avoid poor logic in your speech and to become a critical thinker. 

False Analogy

A 

false analogy is a fallacy where two things are compared that do not share enough key similarities to be compared fairly. As mentioned before, for analogical reasoning to be valid, the two things being compared must be essentially similar—similar in all the important ways. Two states could be analogous, if they are in the same region, have similar demographics and histories, similar size, and other aspects in common. Georgia is more like Alabama than it is like Hawaii, although both are states. An analogy between the United States and, for example, a tiny European country with a homogeneous population is probably not a valid analogy, although common. Even in the case where the two “things” being compared are similar, you should be careful to support your argument with other evidence.

False Cause

False cause is a fallacy that assumes that one thing causes another, but there is no logical connection between the two. A cause must be direct and strong enough, not just before or somewhat related to cause the problem. In a false cause fallacy, the alleged cause might not be strong or direct enough. For example, there has been much debate over the causes of the recession in 2008. If someone said, “The exorbitant salaries paid to professional athletes contributed to the recession” that would be the fallacy of false cause. Why? For one thing, the salaries, though large, are an infinitesimal part of the whole economy. Second, those salaries only affect a small number of people. Third, those salaries have nothing to do with housing market or the management of the large car companies, banks, or Wall Street, which had a stronger and more direct effect on the economy as a whole. In general, while we are often tempted to attribute a large societal or historical outcome to just one cause, that is rarely the case in real life.

Slippery Slope

A 

slippery slope fallacy is a type of false cause which assumes that taking a first step will lead to subsequent events that cannot be prevented. The children’s book, If You Give a Moose a Muffin is a good example of slippery slope; it tells all the terrible things (from a child’s point of view) that will happen, one after another, if a moose is given a muffin. If A happens, then B will happen, then C, then D, then E, F, G and it will get worse and worse and before you know it, we will all be in some sort of ruin. So, don’t do A or don’t let A happen, because it will inevitably lead to Z, and of course, Z is terrible.

This type of reasoning fails to look at alternate causes or factors that could keep the worst from happening, and often is somewhat silly when A is linked right to Z. A young woman may say to a young man asking her out, “If I go out with you Thursday night, I won’t be able to study for my test Friday. Then I will fail the test. Then I will fail the class. Then I will lose my scholarship. Then I will have to drop out of college. Then I will not get the career I want, and I’ll be 30 years old still living with my parents, unmarried, unhappy, and no children or career! That’s why I just can’t go out with you!” Obviously, this young woman has gone out of her way to get out of this date, and she has committed a 

slippery slope. Additionally, since no one can predict the future, we can never be entirely certain on the direction a given chain of events will lead.

Slippery slope arguments are often used in discussions over emotional and hot button topics such as gun control and physician-assisted suicide. One might argue that “If guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns,” a bumper sticker you may have seen. This is an example of a slippery slope argument because it is saying that any gun control laws will inevitably lead to no guns being allowed at all in the U.S. and then the inevitable result that only criminals will have guns because they don’t obey gun control laws anyway. While it is true criminals do not care about gun laws, we already have a large number of gun laws and the level of gun ownership is as high as ever.

However, just because an argument is criticized as a 

slippery slope, that does not mean it is a slippery slope. Sometimes actions do lead to far-reaching but unforeseen events, according to the “law of unintended consequences.” We should look below the surface to see if the accusation of slippery slope is true.

For example, in regard to the anti-gun control “bumper sticker,” an investigation of the facts will show that gun control laws have been ineffective in many ways since we have more guns than ever now (347 million, according to a website affiliated with the National Rifle Association). However, according to the Brookings Institution, there are

“…about 300 major state and federal laws, and an unknown but shrinking number of local laws’. . . . Rather than trying to base arguments for more or fewer laws on counting up the current total, we would do better to study the impact of the laws we do have.” (Vernick & Hepburn, 2003, p. 2).

Note that in the previous paragraph, two numerical figures are used, both from sources that are not free of bias. The National Rifle Association obviously opposes gun restrictions and does not support the idea that there are too many guns. Their website gives the background to show how that figure was discovered. The Brookings Institution is a “think-tank” (a group of scholars who write about public issues) that advocates gun control. Their article explains how it came to its number of state and federal laws, but admits that it omitted many local laws about carrying or firing guns in public places. So the number is actually higher, by its own admission. The Brookings Institution does not think there are too many laws; it thinks there should be more, or at least better enforced ones. Also, it should be noted that this article is based on data from 1970-1999, so the information may be out of date.

This information about the sources is provided to make a point about possible bias in sources and about critical thinking and reading, or more specifically, reading carefully to understand your sources. Just finding a source that looks pretty good is not enough. You must ask important questions about the way the information is presented. An interesting addition the debate is found at https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/essays/ what-science-tells-us-about-the-effects-of-gun-policies.html Although most people have strong opinions about gun control, pro and con, it is a complicated debate that requires, like most societal issues, clear and critical thinking about the evidence.

Hasty Generalization

Making a 

hasty generalization means making a generalization with too few examples. It is so common that we might wonder if there are any legitimate generalizations. The key to generalizations is how the conclusions are “framed” or put into language. The conclusions should be specific and be clear about the limited nature of the sample. Even worse is when the generalization is also applied too hastily to other situations. For example:

Premise: Albert Einstein did poorly in math in school.

Conclusion: All world-renowned scientists do poorly in math in school.

Secondary Conclusion: I did poorly at math in school, so I will become a world-renowned scientist.

Or this example that college professors hear all the time.

Premise: Mark Zuckerberg dropped out of college, invented Facebook, and made billions of dollars.

Premise: Bill Gates dropped out of college, started Microsoft, and made billions of dollars.

Conclusion: Dropping out of college leads to great financial success.

Secondary conclusion: A college degree is unnecessary to great financial success.

Straw Man

A 

straw man fallacy is a fallacy that shows only the weaker side of an opponent’s argument in order to more easily tear it down. The term “straw man” brings up the image of a scarecrow, and that is the idea behind the expression. Even a child can beat up a scarecrow; anyone can. Straw man fallacy happens when an opponent in a debate misinterprets or takes a small part of their opponent’s position in a debate. Then they blow that misinterpretation or small part out of proportion and make it a major part of the opponent’s position. This is often done by ridicule, taking statements out of context, or misquoting.

Politicians, unfortunately, commit the 

straw man fallacy quite frequently, but they are hardly the only ones. Someone may argue that college professors don’t care about students’ learning because professors say, “You must read the chapter to understand the material; I can’t explain it all to you in class.” That would be taking a behavior and making it mean something it doesn’t. If someone states, “College A is not as good as College B because the cafeteria food at College A is not as good” is a pretty weak argument— and making too big of a deal over of a minor thing—for attending one college over another.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc

This long Latin phrase means “After the fact, therefore because of the fact.” Also called historical fallacy, this one is an error in 

causal reasoning. Historical fallacy uses progression in time as the reason for causation, but nothing else. In this scenario, A happens, then B happens; therefore A caused B. The fallacy states that because an event takes place first in time, it is the cause of an event that takes place later in time. We know that is not true, but sometimes we act as if it is.

Elections often get blamed for everything that happens afterward. It is true that a cause must happen first or before the effect, but it doesn’t 

mean that everything or anything that happens beforehand must be the cause. In the example given earlier, a football team losing its game five days earlier can’t be the reason for a student failing a test just because it happened first.

Argument from Silence

You can’t prove something from nothing. If the constitution, legal system, authority, or the evidence is silent on a matter, then that is all you know. You cannot conclude anything about that. “I know ESP is true because no one has ever proven that it isn’t true” is not an argument. Here we see the difference between fallacious and false. Fallacious has to do with the reasoning process being incorrect, not with the truth or falseness of the conclusion. If I point to a girl on campus and say, “That girl is Taylor Swift,” I am simply stating a falsehood, not committing a fallacy. If I say, “Her name is Taylor Swift, and the reason I know that is because no one has ever told me that her name is not Taylor Swift” (

argument from silence), that is a fallacy and a falsehood. (Unless by some odd circumstance her name really is Taylor Swift or the singer Taylor Swift frequents your campus!)

Statistical fallacies

There are many ways that 

statistics can be used unethically, but here we will deal with three. The first type of statistical fallacy is “small sample,” the second is “unrepresentative sample,” and the third is a variation of appeal to popularity (discussed below). In small sample, an argument is being made from too few examples, so it is essentially hasty generalization. In unrepresentative sample, a conclusion is based on surveys of people who do not represent, or resemble, the ones to whom the conclusion is being applied. If you ever take a poll on a website, it is not “scientific” because it is unrepresentative. Only people who go to that website are participating, and the same people could be voting over and over. In a scientific or representative survey or poll, the pollsters talk to different socio-economic classes, races, ages, and genders and the data-gathering is very carefully performed.

If you go to the president of your college and say, “We need to have a daycare here because 90% of the students say so,” but you only polled ten students, that would be small sample. If you say, “I polled 100 students,” that would still be small, but better, unless all of them were your friends who attended other colleges in the state. That group would not be representative of the student body. If you polled 300 students but they were all members of the same high school graduating class and the same gender as you, that would also be unrepresentative sample.

In the end, surveys indicate trends in opinions and behaviors, not the future and not the truth. We have lots of polls before the election, but only one poll matters—the official vote on Election Day.

Non Sequitur

Non sequitur is Latin for “it does not follow.” It’s an all-purpose fallacy for situations where the conclusion sounds good at first but then you realize there is no connection between the premises and the conclusion. If you say to your supervisor, “I need a raise because the price of BMWs went up,” that is a non sequitur.

Inappropriate Appeal to Authority

There are appropriate appeals to authority, such as when you use sources in your speech who are knowledgeable, experienced, and credible. But not all sources are credible. Some may be knowledgeable about one field but not another. A person with a Nobel Prize in economics is not qualified to talk about medicine, no matter how smart he/she is (the economist could talk about the economic factors of medicine, however). Of course, the most common place we see this is in celebrity endorsements on commercials.

False Dilemma

This one is often referred to as the “either-or” fallacy. When you are given only two options, and more than two options exist, that is 

false dilemma. Usually in false dilemma, one of the options is undesirable and the other is the one the persuader wants you to take. False dilemma is common. “America: Love it or Leave It.” “If you don’t buy this furniture today, you’ll never get another chance.” “Vote for Candidate Y or see our nation destroyed.”

Appeal to Tradition

Essentially, 

appeal to tradition is the argument, “We’ve always done it this way.” This fallacy happens when traditional practice is the only reason for continuing a policy. Tradition is a great thing. We do many wonderful things for the sake of tradition, and it makes us feel good. But doing something only because it’s always been done a certain way is not an argument. Does it work? Is it cost effective? Is some other approach better? If your college library refused to adopt a computer database of books in favor of the old card catalog because “that’s what libraries have done for decades,” you would likely argue they need to get with the times. The same would be true if the classrooms all still had only chalkboards instead of computers and projectors and the administration argued that it fit the tradition of classrooms.

Bandwagon

This fallacy is also referred to as “appeal to majority” and “appeal to popularity,” using the old expression of “get on the bandwagon” to support an idea. Essentially, bandwagon is a fallacy that asserts that because something is popular (or seems to be), it is therefore good, correct, or desirable. In a sense it was mentioned before, under statistical fallacies. Of course, you’ve probably heard it or said it many times: “Everybody is doing it.” Well, of course, everybody is not doing it, it just seems like it. And the fact (or 

perception) that more than 50% of the population is engaging in an activity does not make that a wise activity.

Many times in history over 50% of the population believed or did something that was not good or right, such as believing the earth was the center of the solar system and the sun orbited around the earth. In a democracy we make public policy to some extent based on majority rule, but we also have protections for the minority. This is a wonderful part of our system. It is sometimes foolish to say that a policy is morally right or wrong or wise just because it is supported by 50% of the people. So when you hear a public 

opinion poll that says, “58% of the population thinks…” keep this in mind. Also, all it means is that 58% of the people on a survey indicated a belief or attitude on a survey, not that the belief or attitude is correct or that it will be the majority opinion in the future.

Red Herring

This one has an interesting history, and you might want to look it up. A herring is a fish, and it was once used to throw off or distract foxhounds from a particular scent. A 

red herring, then, is creating a diversion or introducing an irrelevant point to distract someone or get someone off the subject of the argument. When a politician in a debate is asked about his stance on immigration, and the candidate responds, “I think we need to focus on reducing the debt. That’s the real problem!”, he is introducing a red herring to distract from the original topic under discussion. If someone argues, “We should not worry about the needs of people in other countries because we have poor people in the United States,” that may sound good on the surface, but it is a red herring and a false dilemma (either-or) fallacy. It is possible to address poverty in this country and other countries at the same time.

Ad Hominem

This Latin term means “argument to the man,” and generally refers to a fallacy that attacks the person rather than dealing with the real issue in dispute. A person using 

ad hominem connects a real or perceived flaw in a person’s character or behavior to an issue he or she supports, asserting that the flaw in character makes the position on the issue wrong. Obviously, there is no connection. In a sense, ad hominem is a type of red herring because it distracts from the real argument. In some cases, the “hidden agenda” is to say that because someone of bad character supports an issue or argument, therefore the issue or argument is not worthy or logical.

A person using 

ad hominem might say, “Climate change is not true. It is supported by advocates such as Congressman Jones, and we all know that Congressman Jones was convicted of fraud last year.” This is not to say that Congressman Jones should be re-elected, only that climate change’s being true or false is irrelevant to the fraud conviction. Do not confuse ad hominem with poor credibility or ethos. A speaker’s ethos, based on character or past behavior, does matter. It just doesn’t mean that the issues they support are logically or factually wrong.or past behavior, does matter. It just doesn’t mean that the issues they support are logically or factually wrong.

Ad Misericordium

This Latin term means “appeal to pity” and sometimes that term is used instead of the Latin one. There is nothing wrong with pity and human compassion as an emotional appeal in a persuasive speech; in fact, that is definitely one you might want to use if it is appropriate, such as to solicit donations to a worthwhile charity. However, if the appeal to pity is used to elicit an emotional appeal and cover up a lack of facts and evidence, it is being used as a smokescreen and is deceiving the audience. If a nonprofit organization tried to get donations by wrenching your heartstrings, that emotion may divert your 

attention from how much of the donation really goes to the “cause.” Chapter 3 of this book looked at ethics in public speaking, and intentional use of logical fallacies is a breach of ethics, even if the audience accepts them and does not use critical thinking on its own.

Plain Folks

Plain folks is a tactic commonly used in advertising and by politicians. Powerful persons will often try to make themselves appear like the “common man.” A man running for Senate may walk around in a campaign ad in a flannel shirt, looking at his farm. (Flannel shirts are popular for politicians, especially in the South.) A businessman of a large corporation may want you to think his company cares about the “little guy” by showing the owner helping on the assembly line. The image that these situations create says, “I’m one of the guys, just like you.” There is nothing wrong with wearing a flannel shirt and looking at one’s farm, unless the reason is to divert from the real issues.

Guilt by Association

This fallacy is a form of 

false analogy based on the idea that if two things bear any relationship at all, they are comparable. No one wants to be blamed for something just because she is in the wrong place at the wrong time or happens to bear some resemblance to a guilty person. An example would be if someone argued, “Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian; therefore being a vegetarian is evil.” Of course, vegetarianism as a life practice had nothing to do with Hitler’s character. Although this is an extreme example, it is not uncommon to hear guilt by association used as a type of ad hominem argument. There is actually a fallacy called “reductio ad Hitlerum”— whenever someone dismisses an argument by bringing up Hitler out of nowhere.

There are other fallacies, many of which go by Latin names. You can visit other websites, such as http://www.logicalfallacies.info/ for more types and examples. These eighteen are a good start to helping you discern good reasoning and supplement your critical thinking knowledge and ability

Conclusion

This chapter took the subject of 

public speaking to a different level in that it was somewhat more abstract than the other chapters. However, a public speaker is responsible for using good reasoning as much as she is responsible to have an organized speech, to analyze the audience, or to practice for effective delivery.

Something to Think About

You cannot hear logical fallacies unless you listen carefully and critically. Keep your ears open to possible uses of fallacies. Are they used in discussion of emotional topics? Are they used to get compliance (such as to buy a product) without allowing the consumer to think about the issues? What else do you notice about them?

Here is a class activity one of the authors has used in the past to teach fallacies. With a small group of classmates, create a “fallacy skit” to perform for the class. Plan and act out a situation where a fallacy is being used, and then be able to explain it to the class. The example under 

Slippery Slope about the young woman turning down a date actually came from the author’s students in a fallacy skit.

This page titled 14.4: Logical Fallacies is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Kris Barton & Barbara G. Tucker (GALILEO Open Learning Materials) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.

• 14.4: Logical Fallacies by Kris Barton & Barbara G. Tucker is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Original source: https://oer.galileo.usg.edu/communication-textbooks/1.

9.14: Common Logical Fallacies

• Lumen Learning

Learning Objectives

• Explain common logical fallacies

• Differentiate between types of logical fallacies

A logical fallacy is a flaw in reasoning or a flawed structure that undermines the validity of an argument. A fallacious argument can make productive conversation impossible. Logical fallacies are often used by politicians and the media to fool people because they have the deceptive appearance of being reasonable—despite their exploitation of our emotional, intellectual, and psychological weaknesses. Having the ability to recognize fallacies in an argument is one way to reduce the likelihood of such occurrences in your own writing.

Watch It

This videos walks you through techniques for evaluating an argument and looks at some common fallacies.

A link to an interactive elements can be found at the bottom of this page.

You can view the transcript for “Evaluating an Argument” here (opens in new window).

Some of the most common types of logical fallacies are discussed below. Read each one carefully, then try to come up with your own example of how you’ve seen that fallacy. First are some fallacies that misuse appeals to logos or attempt to manipulate the logic of an argument:

Fallacies related to logos

Fallacies related to pathos

See below for the most common fallacies that misuse appeals to pathos, or emotion.

Fallacies related to ethos

Beyond lying about their own credentials, authors may employ a number of fallacies to lure you to their point of view. Some of the more common techniques appear in the chart below. When you recognize these fallacies being committed you should question the credibility of the speaker and the legitimacy of the argument.

The first step to avoiding logical fallacies in your own writing is learning how to identify them in other writing. You can find examples of logical fallacies on the news, on the internet, and on the street. Sometimes these fallacies are egregious and obvious (think about the headlines you see in the tabloids), but other times the logical issues are less obvious.

In the following exercises, consider the fallacies you have learned about in this section. Try to apply those definitions to the following scenarios. Choose the fallacy that most accurately describes what’s going on in each statement.

Try It

https://assessments.lumenlearning.co...sessments/5174

Watch It

In this video example, a student was asked to find logical fallacies in advertisements. Watch to see which fallacies he identifies, and consider if you’ve encountered media making similar arguments.

A link to an interactive elements can be found at the bottom of this page.

You can view the transcript for “Analyze This- Logical Fallacies” here (opens in new window).

Contributors and Attributions

CC licensed content, Original

• Revision and Adaptation. Provided by: Lumen Learning. License: CC BY: Attribution

CC licensed content, Shared previously

• Logical Fallacies. Provided by: OWL at Excelsior College. Located at: http://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/logical-fallacies/. Project: . License: CC BY: Attribution

• Practice Activity. Provided by: University of Mississippi. License: CC BY: Attribution

• Evaluating Appeals to Ethos, Logos, and Pathos. Provided by: Lumen Learning. Located at: courses.lumenlearning.com/engcomp1-wmopen/chapter/text-evaluating-appeals-to-ethos-logos-and-pathos/. License: CC BY: Attribution

• What fallacies misuse appeals to logos. Located at: https://lcubbison.pressbooks.com/chapter/core-201-appeals-to-ethos-logos-and-pathos/#201aae6. Project: Core Curriculum Handbook. License: Public Domain: No Known Copyright

• Evaluating an Argument. Provided by: Excelsior OWL. Located at: https://owl.excelsior.edu/orc/what-to-do-after-reading/analyzing/evaluating-an-argument/. License: CC BY: Attribution

• Analyze This Argument Video. Provided by: Excelsior OWL. Located at: https://owl.excelsior.edu/argument-and-critical-thinking/logical-fallacies/logical-fallacies-analyze-this/. License: CC BY: Attribution

This page titled 9.14: Common Logical Fallacies is shared under a CC BY 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Lumen Learning via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.

1.6: Week 6 - Pathos (Emotions, Values)

• Andrew Gurevich

• Mt Hood Community College via MHCC Library Press

Pathos is an important tool of persuasion in arguments. Pathos is a method of convincing people with an argument drawn out through an emotional response. Analyzing examples of pathos, one would come to the conclusion that it differs from other “ingredients of persuasion,” namely “ethos” and “logos,” in that it requires us to try to quantify subjective, emotional and values-based assumptions in our quest to understand and evaluate academic arguments. The use of pathos is called a “pathetic appeal.” Note that this is very different from our usual understanding of the word “pathetic.” “Pathos” is used to describe the rhetor’s attempt to appeal to “an audience’s sense of identity, their self-interest, and their emotions.” If the rhetor can create a common sense of identity with their audience, then the rhetor is using a pathetic appeal. “Pathos” most often refers to an attempt to engage an audience’s emotions. Think about the different emotions people are capable of feeling: they include love, pity, sorrow, affection, anger, fear, greed, lust, and hatred. If a rhetor tries to make an audience feel emotions in response to what is being said or written, then they are using pathos.

Common Examples of Pathos

For a better understanding of the subject, let us examine a few pathos examples from daily conversations:

• “If we don’t leave this place soon, we’ll be yelling for help. There’s no one to help us here, let’s get out of here and live.” – This statement evokes emotions of fear.

• The “Made in America” label on various products sold in America tries to enhance sales by appealing to customers’ sense of patriotism.

• Ads encouraging charitable donations show small children living in pathetic conditions, to evoke pity in people.

• Referring to a country as “the motherland” stirs up patriotic feelings in individuals living in that country or state.

• A soft, instrumental symphony may arouse people emotionally.

Resources for studying and using Pathos in Arguments

• View the video: What is Pathos?, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6JQkXwgMVk&feature=youtu.be

• View the video: Four Ways to Persuade with Emotion (Pathos), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5k5Fkn8eAw&feature=youtu.be

• View the handout: Pathos

• View the handout: Using Logos, Pathos & Ethos

Using Pathos Correctly

Whether we are making arguments or analyzing them, it is important that we use Pathos carefully. Often, our emotions can get in the way or clear and critical thinking on an issue. Pathos can and should be used to clarify how a well-supported position relates to our values and beliefs but should never be used to manipulate, confuse or inflate an issue beyond what the evidence is capable of supporting.

The Science of Emotions

The following three TED Talks each address the science and growing body of research that explores the biological origins of our emotional states and what we can learn about ourselves from carefully studying our feelings. While not addressing the techniques of argument analysis and critical thinking directly, we can learn a great deal from these talks about the way Pathos is used to influence our choices, our perceptions, our thoughts, values and beliefs by understanding how emotions work and how, possibly, to better control them.

• View the video: Why What We Feel Matters More Than What We Think, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsDVCQnqcy4&feature=youtu.be

• View the video: Why You Feel What You Feel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-rRgpPbR5w&feature=youtu.be

• View the video: The Science of Emotions, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65e2qScV_K8&feature=youtu.be

These TED Talks give us a great deal of information on the science of emotions and how we can use that data to better understand and work with our feelings. Some things to consider in summary:

• Humans are very complex emotional creatures who use their feelings as much as, or even more than, their thoughts to make decisions in the world.

• Even though scientists have graphed close to 35,000 distinct emotions, most people only feel around 10-12 of them with any regularity.

• Of those top 12, the overwhelming majority of people make most of their decisions based on just three: love, hatred and fear.

• We make, on average, around 33,000 individual choices a day. If the data is correct, most of those decisions are governed, at least in part, by our reactions to our internal states of love, hatred and/or fear.

• So if we are not aware of (and at least somewhat in control of) how we process these emotions, anyone who wishes to manipulate us (politicians, advertisers, abusive partners, incompetent writing professors, etc.) can misuse Pathos in manipulative ways to trigger states of love, hatred or fear in us to make us more susceptible to accepting or rejecting a given argument without fully considering the merits of its evidence.

This page titled 1.6: Week 6 - Pathos (Emotions, Values) is shared under a CC BY license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Andrew Gurevich (MHCC Library Press) .

4.1.8: Fake News and Misinformation

• Bradley H. Dowden

• California State University Sacramento

Too often what looks like news is not news. It has been faked, and we have been misinformed. Someone wants us to believe it even though they know it is not true. We critical thinkers, need to keep up our defenses and not be naïve. 

In Chicago back in 2017, four black teenagers kidnapped and tortured a white teenager. Although the teenagers who committed this terrible act had no connection to the organization Black Lives Matter, an opponent of that organization quickly created a social network posting with the hashtag #BLMKidnapping about how the organization kidnapped and tortured a white person in Chicago. This led to a very large conversation about the topic, and the size of the conversation led other news organizations to repeat the claim that Black Lives Matter was thought to be involved. Repeating misinformation in new places made the misinformation more believable to many persons. The high interest in the story became news itself. Comments that BLM might not have been involved were little noticed among the noise in the tweetstorm. In fact, BLM was not involved.

Misinformation goes beyond the occasional hoax. It is a systematic attack on our brains. We critical thinkers seek the news, not the fake news. It is not always easy for us to tell the difference, but the more we know about fake news and how it is created, and the more pro-active we are, the easier it will be for us.

Exercise  4.1.8.1

Here is a critical thinking question about the following newspaper report.

In May 2016, a Facebook page called Heart of Texas urged its nearly 254,000 followers to rise up against what it considered to be an urgent cultural menace. A mosque in Houston (Texas) had opened up a new library, and Heart of Texas planned to protest. "Stop Islamization of Texas," it warned.

Word of the protest spread quickly, but supporters of the mosque were also ready to mobilize. "Bigots are planning to intimidate through weaponized fear this Saturday at noon," one of them wrote on Reddit. The post linked to a Facebook page for United Muslims of America, a group that said it was planning a counter-protest for the same time and place.

…Heart of Texas wasn't a real group, as Business Insider later reported. United Muslims of America is a real organization, but the Facebook page promoting the counter-protest was not run by the actual group, as The Daily Beast found. Instead, according to documents made public last week by the Senate Intelligence Committee, both the pro- and anti-mosque protests had been planned and promoted by Russian trolls.

…A few dozen real Americans did protest that Saturday in Houston. videos of the protest show real emotion—people on opposite sides of the street screaming, swearing and truly angry to have to share the country with the bozos on the other side.

…In response to Heart of Texas' "Stop Islamization" post, a Facebook user upset with the Houston mosque posted a comment suggesting that it be blown up.

—By Farhad Manjoo, "The Drama of Reality TV, Brought to You by Russia," The New York Times, November 9, 2017, pp. B1 and B9. Photo by Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle.

Trolls are people paid to spread comments on social media platforms such as Facebook. Now for the question about all this: Were news reports of the feelings of the Houston demonstrators an example of fake news?

a. yes b. no

Answer

No, the protesters' actions and emotions were genuine. What was fake news were the postings by the Russian trolls who were engaged in an online disinformation campaign. It is a cost-effective strategy for Russia, says U.S. Senator Angus Stanley King, Jr. of Maine: "For the price of one F-35 airplane, the Russians can hire 5,000 hackers."

We learned today that the Jefferson County sheriff is part owner of a brothel in nearby South Chesterton, and he seems to be behind the training of high school girls to be prostitutes. Now he's running for Congress. No surprise that the Democratic Party is funding his campaign. Oh, I forgot to mention that a manager of Burger Queen in Florida admitted that her company has been using 20% Vietnam dog meat and 5% Kenya zebra meat in all its burgers. Not just this year, but for the last twenty years! Yuk!

Interesting? Yes. True? No. Tweets with false news spread faster and spread to more people than real news, according to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Media Lab who did a large study of Twitter stories spanning 2006 to 2017. "It's sort of disheartening at first to realize how much we humans are responsible," said Sinan Aral, a professor at the M.I.T. Sloan School of Management and an author of the study. His point: we humans are inclined to prefer false news to real news. To quote from this study by the M.I.T. researchers,

The data comprise ~126,000 stories tweeted by ~3 million people more than 4.5 million times. We classified news as true or false using information from six independent fact-checking organizations that exhibited 95 to 98% agreement on the classifications. Falsehood diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information, and the effects were more pronounced for false political news.

-"The Spread of True and False News Online," by Vosoughi, Roy, and Aral, Science, 09 Mar 2018, page 1146.

Real news tends to be less interesting than fake news. It's exciting to read that a famous sports star burned the American flag in the locker room and the Secretary of State had a pedophilia group hidden in a room in a pizza restaurant. Interesting but fake.

If you cannot quickly sort the real from the fake because it is not about your area of expertise, then you are apt to look for help. Most persons do not know an expert who can tell the difference between genuine and fake, so they usually look to the groups they already identify with for what to believe about a story. They ask, “What are my people saying about this?” or “What do the places I trust say about it?” Most persons will not check for themselves. Who has the time? The powers behind the fake news know this, and they exploit it. They design fake news that is especially interesting to special groups of social media users, news that the users would wish were true. Who doesn't want their enemy to look bad?

The most effective creator of fake news is someone who successfully slips fake news in among the genuine news at news sites. News sites sometimes find the news for themselves, but because doing original journalistic research is expensive, very often a news site will pick up news from another news site and publish it on their own site. In this way a fake news story that was embedded into one of those news sites will more likely to spread across the news media, and occasionally to news sites we, or “our people,” use and trust.

Luckily for us critical thinkers, the very best sources of news have their own defenses up and do not re-broadcast fake news. At the very least they will precede the news item with the phrase, “According to so and so,” or “As reported in....” Also, they will be clear about when they are offering news and when they are offering advertising and when they are offering more disguised advertising that is usually called “sponsored content.” Ads do not come to us with a tag that says, “Hey, I am an ad,” do they? So, it takes some critical thinking to separate them from the news.

Think about that last Twitter message you read. How do you know whether it came from a real human user or from a re-tweeting bot [that is, a software robot, an automated account] that automatically generates spam to make an issue seem to be more popular than it really is? A bot can turn a minor hashtag into a trending hashtag that catches the eye of journalists who re-mention the issue on more mainstream news sites. A trending item is one that gets the clicks, and the trending items spread more easily to a bigger audience. The bot-maker thinks, “Create a trend, and you create believers.”

Here are some very unreliable sources of information in the United States: the newspaper National Enquirer, the newspaper Weekly World News, and the website World News Daily Report. Here are some very reliable sources of information: peer-reviewed scientific journals, the magazine The Economist, and these four daily newspapers: The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post. There are, of course, many reliable sources of information that are not American. “Peer reviewed” means that other experts in the relevant field act as referees who must approve in advance the publication of the article. The best peer reviewing is via blind refereeing, which means that, during the referee process or decision process about whether to publish, the author is never told the names of the referees, and the referees are never told the name of the author. This promotes objectivity. Unfortunately, no method will absolutely guarantee objectivity.

Why should Americans believe that their traditional news organizations are trustworthy? The reporter Steve Inskeep at National Public Radio answered this question:

Many news organizations produce stories that are checked before publication. Others don't. It's a big deal. Hiring an editorial staff shows the publication's respect for you…. The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, for example, have different owners, audiences, stories, perspectives and obsessions. Both have made mistakes and omissions; but both send reporters out into the world and back them up with an editorial process that catches and corrects many errors. This means both can be informative, regardless of your politics or theirs.

When we say a traditional news source backs up its reporters with an editorial process that catches errors, what does this mean? It means that the editors press their reporters to double check the reports, and it means the editors recommend the reporter get at least a second, independent source for any unusual claims about situations that the reporter is not a direct witness to. Unlike so many blogs, the mainstream news organizations employ professionals who are devoted to separating fact from fiction. And for them, making up sources is a great sin.

We critical thinkers need to be alert to the difference between claims that are backed up by reasons and claims that are not. If we are given reasons, we should ask ourselves whether those reasons are good enough. Also, we should ask ourselves, “Am I forwarding this twitter feed to my friends because it is interesting and because I know it to be true, or only because it is interesting?” Think before pressing the "share" button. Does that tweet you received about "breaking news," even contain a link to a credible news source, or is it just an interesting claim?

Some news stories that we suspect could be fake can be checked by us for accuracy by our visiting the websites Snopes.com or FactCheck.org or Politifact.com. They specialize in verifying which interesting news stories are true and which are misleading or totally false. Be alert that some fake news stories might say, “as verified by Snopes.com,” even though Snopes.com actually has done no such thing, and the faker is saying this just to discourage any attempt by us to do more checking.

Nobody can check regularly on hundreds of news sources, nor even read or view them. Most people will find one or two news sources they trust, and then put their investigative skills on cruise control and just absorb whatever those news sources say. This procedure can be very efficient time-wise, but it occasionally can be dangerous. We need to do our own checking once in a while, even with the news sites we usually trust, especially for the really important news that might cause us to say, “That news means my congressperson is a criminal,” or “If that’s true, then it was their country who provoked our country, not the other way around, so we need to retaliate now,” or “That means that what he did is the reason why people like me don’t have a better job.”

Unfortunately, there are news organizations who have decided that profit is their main goal and that it is more profitable to get their audience to feel informed than to be informed. As noted above, acquiring information is expensive. Having their own professional, investigative reporters rather than just writers or “news anchors” is a large, extra expense. It is much cheaper simply to re-broadcast some other organization’s news, and to re-shape it so that one's own audience is told what to believe. The audience leaves feeling informed without being informed. We critical thinkers cannot usually spot this behavior with just a few interactions with the news organization. It takes many interactions and a great deal of sophisticated critical thinking on our part in order to tell which specific news organizations emphasize cost-effective re-shaping of news and which organizations gather news themselves or are very careful about which news sources they themselves use.

If we are checking on a political news item for ourselves, it can be helpful to see whether the item is considered to be news by sources that do not have our own politics. Regarding American TV news organizations, MSNBC is left-wing, CNN is middle of the road, and Fox News is right-wing. If all three report it, then it is probably true, but if it appears on MSNBC News, let’s say, and not Fox News, that isn't a good reason to believe it is not true. It might be true but not be reported on by Fox simply because it is less interesting to them or goes against their politics.

It can be an eye-opening experience to see how the very same story is treated so differently by the above three news organizations. No news source is value-free. Their politics intrude in the phrasing, in what headline is chosen, and in what information is not mentioned—in how they "frame" the news.

The spread of fake news from fraudulent sources has been a problem ever since civilization began, but it is only a symptom: The larger problem is that too many people will doubt a claim simply because it does come from establishment sources—governments, scientists, daily newspapers, TV news programs—when in fact these are reliable authorities. These skeptical people are being naïve when they dismiss real news from traditional sources that are trustworthy. Their alienation from “the establishment” makes them easy receptacles for accepting fake news and rejecting real news.

On the other hand, in many countries the government is too often involved in promoting propaganda and misinformation. The government in turn pressures the newspapers and TV stations they control. If you are living in this situation, then there is good reason to be alienated from the establishment and to be less trustful of its news. Here is a BuzzFeed link to a video showing the Egyptian Minister of Culture telling a crowd that the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton admitted to creating the terrorist organization ISIS (Islamic State). Lebanese media were spreading the same story. How do you know she didn’t create ISIS? Were you there to see for yourself?

Well, you can go to FactCheck.org | Search | Clinton ISIS, and read what FactCheck has to say about whether she did.

Over the years, the U.S. has had its share of corruption within its news establishment, but a smaller share than in the average country.

Critical thinkers should be on the alert for reports containing denunciations of "the right" or “the left” or "Washington" or "the media" or " their supporters." These denunciations should be viewed with suspicion and greatly discounted. Good reporters do not appeal to these vague terms and are more specific about who is making a claim about what.

To repeat the point made earlier about double checking, we critical thinkers have a responsibility to occasionally do some checking ourselves on the reporters and their sources. If we check the occasional claim by viewing the reporter’s own sources for ourselves and by trying to find an independent source who covered the same issue, then we can assign more trust to this reporter in the future.

Critical thinkers should follow President Ronald Reagan’s advice: “trust but verify.” That is, do not always mistrust what someone says, but do demand verification of their claim before we buy it hook, line, and sinker—especially if the claim is surprising and, if we were to trust it, then we would have to reject many of our other beliefs.

A single fact seems puny compared to our ideology—the large set of our beliefs that helps define our worldview. Unfortunately, too many of us, when confronted with a fact that runs counter to our ideology, will immediately discount that fact as our opponent’s partisan opinion. We will not take the trouble to do any of our own fact checking. It is always easier to hunker down secure with our ideology than to take a challenging comment seriously and check on it for ourselves.

What about confronting the person you believe is responsible for promoting fake news? This can be a dangerous thing to do depending on the political situation in which you live. In some countries you could get arrested just for confronting that person. But let’s suppose you are in the United States. In the U.S., the powers behind the fake news, the people who employ bloggers and newscasters to push false news at you, never will be able to have you arrested even if they would like to, but they never will confess to what they are doing when confronted. Most likely they will ignore you. However, sometimes they will attack you. They will yell back; or, in a more public setting, instead of yelling back, they will respond in flowery, formal language such as, “It is clear that absurdity is no prohibition on the actions of you and your sources.” The counter from the faker is very often to say that your facts are just partisan opinions. The faker will try to turn the tables. If that happens, you two are not having a reasoned interchange, and you probably should follow the advice of the American Revolutionary and colonist Thomas Paine:

To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead.

But if you have no effect on the faker, at least your discoveries will have a positive effect on you, yourself. You will learn better how to separate the genuine news from the fake. You will better understand that facts are something more solid than mere opinions of the people who hold microphones.

You can learn a bit about fake news by looking at the publishing situation from the perspective of the originator of the fake news. Put yourself in the shoes of the faker. Why do you produce fake news? Because you believe the end justifies the means. You believe that achieving your goal justifies using unethical methods to achieve it.

Once you have created your fake news, which is, let’s say, an article smearing a political candidate who is opposed by the people who hired you, the best way to get it out there circulating among the news outlets is to send it to a news organization that has low investigative standards and that will see your story as good news, or as the sort of story that entertains their intended audience. They will accept your story without checking on it very much, so long as it seems plausible to them. Then, hopefully, other news organizations will pick up your story from that first news organization and use it for their sites. Now your story has momentum. Another successful day for you. If it goes viral, you might get a raise.

However, suppose later that some self-styled critical thinker or some other media people come back at you and demand to know your evidence. You don’t have any. So, what do you do? The only rational response is to stop talking to those people, isn’t it? Or you call your doctor—your spin doctor whose primary skill is deflection of criticism and counterattack against the critic.

OK, step back out of the shoes of the faker, and now ask yourself, “Would I take a high-paying job as the creator of fake news?”

This page titled 4.1.8: Fake News and Misinformation is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Bradley H. Dowden.

• 4.8: Fake News and Misinformation by Bradley H. Dowden is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

19.2: Cognitive Dissonance

• Jason Southworth & Chris Swoyer

• Fort Hays State & University University of Oklahoma

Leon Festinger devised the theory of cognitive dissonance to explain such phenomena. This theory was very popular in the 1950s and 1960s, was studied less in the next two decades, and made a comeback in the 1990s. Festinger argued that when a person perceives inconsistencies among her actions, attitudes, and beliefs, she will experience an unpleasant motivational state that he called ‘cognitive dissonance’ (‘cognitive’ means ‘psychological’ and ‘dissonance’ means ‘disharmony’, so the idea is that the person feels a disharmony or conflict among their beliefs, attitudes, and the like). Dissonance is psychologically uncomfortable.

The notion of dissonance will be clearer if we contrast it with two other notions. Some of our actions and attitudes reinforce one another: you oppose gun control, and you belong to the NRA; you support campaign finance reform, and you voted for the candidate who supports it. Others are irrelevant to one another: you oppose gun control, and you brush my teeth. But some of our actions and attitudes are psychologically inconsistent: you believe smoking can kill you, but you smoke two packs a day; you think lying is wrong, but you lied through your teeth to get this job. Such inconsistency will often produce cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is an emotionally unpleasant state of tension that results from such perceived inconsistencies. For example, telling a lie to the waiting subjects (action) seems inconsistent with your view that you’re not the sort of person who would tell a lie unless there was a good reason to do so (belief).

Cognitive dissonance involves tension and discomfort, so people will try to eliminate, or at least reduce it. The way to reduce it is typically to modify some of one’s actions, beliefs, or attitudes. Since past actions have already occurred, and a person cannot change what has already been done, dissonance reduction will typically involve a change in attitude or beliefs. This will be easier to see if we consider how dissonance theory explains the two experiments described above.

How Dissonance Theory Explains the Experiments

In both experiments, subjects are induced to do something they don’t want to do. Eating grasshoppers is disgusting and lying to the person outside is wrong. To explain such phenomena, dissonance theory requires one additional assumption:

• When we have strong external reasons or justification for doing something that we don’t approve of, we can explain why we did that thing by noting this justification.

Subjects in the high-reward condition of the second (boring task) experiment could reason this way (though they didn’t do so consciously): I told a lie. I think lying is wrong and I’m not the sort of person who lies without good reason. But sometimes there are good reasons. For example, it is acceptable to tell a little white lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings (“How do you like my new haircut?”). That wouldn’t really show that I’m deceitful. Similarly, in this case, I had a good external reason to tell a lie (the $20). In short, subjects in this condition could conclude that the lie didn’t really reflect badly on them, because they had a strong external justification ($20) to tell it.

But subjects in the low-reward condition didn’t have this out. They could only reason this way: I told a lie. I think lying is wrong and I’m not the sort of person who would tell a lie unless there was a good reason to do so. But I didn’t have a good reason ($1 isn’t enough to justify it). So, these subjects feel an inconsistency among their beliefs and actions: I lied; I wouldn’t lie without a good reason; I didn’t have a good reason. The result: cognitive dissonance.

Festinger reasoned that subjects who lied for $1 couldn’t really justify doing it for so little money. So, to avoid seeing themselves as deceitful—to make their action consistent with their attitudes—they (subconsciously) modified their attitude toward the experiment. It really wasn’t as boring as they originally thought.

The pattern of explanation of the second experiment is the same. Subjects who encountered the friendly experimenter had a good external justification for eating the grasshoppers. They were doing something to help a nice person that they liked. But subjects who had the unfriendly experimenter couldn’t justify their actions in this way. They were stuck with some dissonant views about themselves: I just ate those disgusting grasshoppers; I don’t do things like that without a good reason; I had no good reason to eat them. To reduce this inconsistency, they modified their attitude. The grasshoppers weren’t really that disgusting after all.

In this chapter, we will examine four types of situations where cognitive dissonance plays a role in our actions and thought. The first, which we have focused on thus far, involves induced compliance.

This page titled 19.2: Cognitive Dissonance is shared under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Jason Southworth & Chris Swoyer via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.