Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Chelsea Clinton, and this is in fact, a
Speaker 1: podcast about why public health matters even when we're not
Speaker 1: in a pandemic. Today we're talking about what works and
Speaker 1: what doesn't when it comes to helping people have good
Speaker 1: information to make good decisions for their health, even when
Speaker 1: they may need to change their behavior or their minds.
Speaker 1: Throughout this pandemic, we've seen the impact individual decisions can
Speaker 1: have on our collective health, whether it's wearing masks, practicing
Speaker 1: social distancing, or getting vaccinated. But getting people to do
Speaker 1: those things requires effective messaging and effective trusted messengers. Today,
Speaker 1: I'm talking with two people who have spent years figuring
Speaker 1: out what it takes to spark widespread change in actions
Speaker 1: and attitudes. Later we'll hear from Polster author, political strategists
Speaker 1: and communications consultant Frank Lentz, But first I'm talking with
Speaker 1: behavioral economist Maya Shankar. Maya has spent year studying why
Speaker 1: people do what we do and how to encourage positive
Speaker 1: changes that can have huge results. She's currently Google's Global
Speaker 1: director of Behavioral Economics, which I hope to talk to
Speaker 1: about in a future episode. For today's conversation, we're focused
Speaker 1: on her time as senior advisor in the Obama administration,
Speaker 1: where she founded and served as chair of the White
Speaker 1: House's Behavioral Science Team, a group of scientists studying the
Speaker 1: intersection between human behavior and public policy and using that
Speaker 1: science to help motivate people to make choices to improve
Speaker 1: their health and their lives. Maya. I'm so thrilled to
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. Thank you for being with us today.
Speaker 1: And I think maybe we'll start with your story, if
Speaker 1: that's okay, because I know that you originally trained and
Speaker 1: I think thought you were going to become a classical
Speaker 1: violinist and yet now are a cognitive scientist. How did
Speaker 1: that happen and what sparked your interest in the field originally.
Speaker 1: I think if you had told me as a child,
Speaker 1: one day you'll be studying the mind, I would have
Speaker 1: been like, you're crazy. I'm a violinist. Yeah. When I
Speaker 1: was six, I started playing the violin and it became
Speaker 1: serious very quickly. So when I was nine, I started
Speaker 1: studying at Juilliard every weekend, and then when I was
Speaker 1: in my teens, it's like Pearlman asked me to be
Speaker 1: his private violence student, and that really accelerated things for me.
Speaker 1: And I for anyone who may not know who it's
Speaker 1: like Pelman is, explain why that was such a big deal.
Speaker 1: So he's like arguably the best violinist in the world.
Speaker 1: I still get tinkles saying that he was my teacher.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it was just such an amazing period of
Speaker 1: my life. And then I had a hand injury suddenly
Speaker 1: one day, and unfortunately, doctors told me at that point
Speaker 1: that I could never play the violin again. So I
Speaker 1: kind of went from like this peak interest and passion
Speaker 1: to being told you have to pivot. Oh, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine how devastating that was, especially given where
Speaker 1: you were at that point in time and in your
Speaker 1: study and your dreams for yourself, and yet you imagined
Speaker 1: a different future. Yeah, so I was pretty lost, and
Speaker 1: I didn't know what it was that I could be
Speaker 1: passionate about again. But fortunately for me, the summer before college,
Speaker 1: I stumbled upon a book on how the mind works,
Speaker 1: and it basically detailed the remarkable abilities that our minds
Speaker 1: have to process language. So this book was on language acquisition,
Speaker 1: and I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, this is amazing,
Speaker 1: Like I have taken my ability to process language speak language,
Speaker 1: comprehend it for granted my entire life, and it's actually
Speaker 1: the result of really sophisticated cognitive processing and every thinking.
Speaker 1: If this is what underlies language, like what underlies even
Speaker 1: higher level stuff like doing complex math, or thinking about
Speaker 1: deep philosophical questions, or analyzing the cost benefit of a
Speaker 1: public health policy, or falling in love. And I just
Speaker 1: in that moment, I just became so captivated by the
Speaker 1: inner workings of the mind. And so that began a
Speaker 1: decades long journey to study the mind. So I got
Speaker 1: my PhD and post doc in cognitive psychology and neuroscience
Speaker 1: and basically have been studying how and why we make decisions,
Speaker 1: as well as how we develop our attitudes and beliefs
Speaker 1: about the world. And the reason why I believe this
Speaker 1: body of research is so important is that one of
Speaker 1: the things behavioral science teaches us is that there are
Speaker 1: many surprising factors that influence our behaviors, factors we might
Speaker 1: not even be consciously aware of. Before you were in Google,
Speaker 1: you were at the White House and the Obama administration,
Speaker 1: and you helped create the White House Social and Behavioral
Speaker 1: Sciences Team, which kind of colloquially has been touched, has
Speaker 1: been touched, has been has been dubbed the nudge unit. Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that says about my language acquisition,
Speaker 1: but could you talk about what maybe some of the
Speaker 1: work you did while you were at the White House
Speaker 1: led to any changes at the federal level on how
Speaker 1: we might nudge to help people make better decisions for themselves. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one project we worked on was with the Department
Speaker 1: of Veterans Affairs, and we were trying to boost enrollment
Speaker 1: in a benefits program m that veterans could take advantage
Speaker 1: of upon returning to this country. And the reason the
Speaker 1: government offered this program is that assimilating back to civilian
Speaker 1: life can be a very challenging transition, and we wanted
Speaker 1: to do everything we could to aid the transition right,
Speaker 1: to open up job opportunities, higher education, etcetera, etcetera. And
Speaker 1: so the v A was seeing, oh, man, you know,
Speaker 1: we're offering this program, but participation rates are low. What
Speaker 1: can we do about it? Especially in a resource constrained
Speaker 1: environment where we don't have a ton of dollars to
Speaker 1: throw at this, But we really want to make sure
Speaker 1: that veterans are getting the best experience they can. So
Speaker 1: they came to us and they said, we just have
Speaker 1: this one email to work with, Please do what you
Speaker 1: can to it. We ended up changing just one line
Speaker 1: in the email message. Instead of telling veterans that they
Speaker 1: were eligible for the program, we simply reminded them that
Speaker 1: they had earned it through their years of service. And
Speaker 1: that one word tweak led to a nine percent increase
Speaker 1: in participation in the program and access to the program,
Speaker 1: which is many, many thousands of people. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of veterans. What this owed us, and the principle that
Speaker 1: it was based on is a version of what's called
Speaker 1: the endowment effect, which says that we value things more
Speaker 1: when we feel we own them, or in this case,
Speaker 1: have earned them, and that we have something to lose
Speaker 1: by not taking advantage of them. Another quick example of
Speaker 1: some of the work we did at the White House
Speaker 1: had to do with going to college. Every year of
Speaker 1: college accepted high school grads who are from urban districts
Speaker 1: failed to matriculate in college in the fall because they
Speaker 1: haven't completed required tasks like filling out a course enrollment
Speaker 1: form or taking a placement test. And this is tragic, right, Chelsea,
Speaker 1: because these are kids who have already overcome all the
Speaker 1: barriers along the way when it comes to applying to
Speaker 1: college and then even getting in, and yet they don't
Speaker 1: end up matriculating in the fall. So this phenomenon is
Speaker 1: known as summer melts. And what behavioral science shows us
Speaker 1: is that we reliably underestimate the kinds of small barriers
Speaker 1: that can deter people from achieving their long term goal.
Speaker 1: What we found from our inventions while at the White
Speaker 1: House was that sending students just eight text messages over
Speaker 1: the summer that reminded them to complete these tasks boosted
Speaker 1: college enrollment by nine and so again like a really
Speaker 1: low cost intervention, but it was a game changer for
Speaker 1: these students. And like, I don't know these days, what
Speaker 1: we send eight text messages within ten minutes in our
Speaker 1: daily in our daily lives, that could make the difference
Speaker 1: between a kid going to college or not going to college.
Speaker 1: Do you know if that program continued under the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: It's a good question. Um, not sure in this case.
Speaker 1: But what I did try to do when designing the
Speaker 1: behavioral science team within the White House was to build
Speaker 1: it in a very bipartisan part of government because I
Speaker 1: just felt like what we're promoting here is not a
Speaker 1: partisan agenda. We're just trying to make government programs smarter,
Speaker 1: make sure that they actually achieve their policy objectives. And
Speaker 1: so we built the team in part of the government
Speaker 1: again that's relatively bipartisan. It's called the General Services Administration,
Speaker 1: which meant that even though I disbanded the White House
Speaker 1: component of the team when I left the agency, components
Speaker 1: of the team still persistent and we're still working on
Speaker 1: really amazing programs. I'm just incredibly curious now, having listened
Speaker 1: to your reflections on your time in government, what you
Speaker 1: think over the last fifteen months, when so much has
Speaker 1: been made partisan and political that really shouldn't have been
Speaker 1: when it comes to COVID, I think what's really important
Speaker 1: for people to understand is that there are obviously many
Speaker 1: underlying causes for why people fall prey to misinformation or
Speaker 1: labor under false beliefs, and it's really important to understand
Speaker 1: the psychology underlying each of these causes because then we
Speaker 1: can design tailored solutions. We can't use a blunt instruments
Speaker 1: to solve all of the problems. So if we can
Speaker 1: really with this like fine point, figure out, Okay, what
Speaker 1: is the psychology leading to X non ideal outcome or
Speaker 1: why non ideal outcome that we can really try and
Speaker 1: solve it. So, behavioral economics has shed light on several
Speaker 1: of these and has served up some potentially very powerful solutions.
Speaker 1: So the first one has to do with a framework
Speaker 1: called cultural cognition, and this is work done by Dan
Speaker 1: Kahan and others. He's a professor at Yale Law School. Basically,
Speaker 1: what this theory says is, look, we all know that
Speaker 1: people can disagree strongly, even on empirical matters, things that
Speaker 1: you and I are like, Okay, these are just the facts.
Speaker 1: Is climate change real? Does gun control regulation lead to
Speaker 1: fewer deaths? Right? It's like yes and yes, And so
Speaker 1: it's tempting to think that in order to persuade people
Speaker 1: of something, we just need to give them more facts.
Speaker 1: It's just an information gap problem, right. If we can
Speaker 1: just give them more information, we can solve the problem.
Speaker 1: But I think many of us see in our everyday
Speaker 1: lives that this doesn't always work. Right, Like the proverbial
Speaker 1: Thanksgiving dinner where you're sitting across from your relative and
Speaker 1: they're absolutely convinced that COVID is not real and giving them.
Speaker 1: More evidence just doesn't seem to work, and that's because
Speaker 1: we may be failing to appreciate a key piece of
Speaker 1: the puzzle, and that's that we don't just form our
Speaker 1: beliefs from facts. We form our beliefs partly based on
Speaker 1: our group identities and the values that group has. There's
Speaker 1: this really illustrative example, a classic study from the fifties
Speaker 1: about sports team loyalty that I think highlights this really well.
Speaker 1: So in this study, fans of opposing teams were shown
Speaker 1: footage of controversial referee calls from a football game. Okay,
Speaker 1: and even though these people were watching exactly the same footage,
Speaker 1: they arrived at very different conclusions about the referee calls
Speaker 1: based on their loyalty to their sports team. So they
Speaker 1: tended to think that calls were unfair towards their team,
Speaker 1: but not the opposing team. So what this study illustrates
Speaker 1: is that there are internal group allegiances are literally shaping
Speaker 1: their their views of reality. So how does this relate
Speaker 1: to COVID. What it shows us is that people's beliefs
Speaker 1: about COVID may in fact be serving as a deep
Speaker 1: reflection of their values and their group membership. Some of
Speaker 1: us think it's just if he's of cloth, wear a
Speaker 1: mask for God's sake. But for many people, wearing a
Speaker 1: mask or getting vaccinated or social distancing can carry huge
Speaker 1: symbolic significance. They feel in some way that it threatens
Speaker 1: their group membership. It's not this like thoughtful cost benefit
Speaker 1: analysis of the inconvenience of wearing a mask versus the
Speaker 1: risk of getting a virus, and it is profound meaning
Speaker 1: within their social networks. And I think, unfortunately, so much
Speaker 1: of what we've seen over the last many months now
Speaker 1: of COVID our efforts from people who think they're doing
Speaker 1: the right thing too by not only heaping more evidence,
Speaker 1: but also often shouting at people or shaming or attempting
Speaker 1: to shame people. And we know that doesn't work. It
Speaker 1: never works. How do you think we can all just
Speaker 1: be more aware of those different identities that we carry
Speaker 1: within ourselves so that we may better understand how they
Speaker 1: influence our behavior and sometimes in ways that our counter
Speaker 1: to what we think we're doing. You are one million
Speaker 1: percent right shouting, being antagonistic, undermining people's values. This stuff
Speaker 1: doesn't work. While it feels good, we're like fulfilling some
Speaker 1: sort of deep emotional need to just get it out.
Speaker 1: It's not effective. Okay, So here's the good news. Behavioral
Speaker 1: economics helps us to identify part of this problem, but
Speaker 1: then it also offers up some solutions. One of my
Speaker 1: favorite bodies of research that's emerging, it's really fresh, is
Speaker 1: called moral reframing, and it's the idea that when we
Speaker 1: ground our arguments in moral terms that affirm, rather than
Speaker 1: threaten the moral values of those we disagree with, it's
Speaker 1: far more effective at helping them change their views. So,
Speaker 1: to give you a concrete example, if you're trying to
Speaker 1: convince conservatives to care more about the environment, you might
Speaker 1: appeal to values that conservatives tend to hold, for example, patriotism.
Speaker 1: There's research showing that like a frame such as being
Speaker 1: pro environmental allows us to protect and preserve the American
Speaker 1: way of life. It is patriotic to conserve this beautiful
Speaker 1: country's natural resources, which by I also agree with, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I completely agree with exactly. So this framing, which is
Speaker 1: holding their values constant, but is saying that they can
Speaker 1: achieve progress on those values through climate change reform, is
Speaker 1: a very effective way of getting folks to change their minds.
Speaker 1: And it's really funny. So I'm I'm interviewing folks for
Speaker 1: this new podcast that I'm coming out with, which is
Speaker 1: all about change, and one of the people that I interviewed,
Speaker 1: she's a woman named Megan Phelps Roper. She grew up
Speaker 1: in this, you know, absolutely vile hate group. It was
Speaker 1: a religious cult called the Westboro Baptist Church. Oh, I'm
Speaker 1: very familiar with the Westboro Baptist Church. It's super venomous.
Speaker 1: And what was fascinating about Megan's story is that she
Speaker 1: was a true believer in her life. She was born
Speaker 1: into the church, her grandfather founded it. When she graduated
Speaker 1: from college, she became one of the church's most vocal supporters.
Speaker 1: And it was only when people engaged with her in
Speaker 1: the way that I just described, using these moral reframing techniques,
Speaker 1: that it started to make a dent. That it created
Speaker 1: a crack in her ideology that ultimately led her to
Speaker 1: realize that everything she had ever believed was wrong and
Speaker 1: that she needed to challenge her own views. But importantly, again,
Speaker 1: they didn't tell her, Megan, your views are absolutely completely insane.
Speaker 1: They said, Okay, I'm going to take your values as fixed,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to show you through these reframing techniques
Speaker 1: why you might want to think about them differently. And
Speaker 1: that was very powerful for her. And I always think, wow,
Speaker 1: if you could take someone who had such an extremist
Speaker 1: ideology and use this kind of technique, how powerful is that?
Speaker 1: And the other thing Chelsea I wanted to mention is
Speaker 1: we really need to be thoughtful about who the messenger
Speaker 1: is when communicating some of these public health messages. We
Speaker 1: know that people are far more receptive to evidence that
Speaker 1: challenges their existing views when it's coming from a member
Speaker 1: of their own community. And importantly that expert bodies, so
Speaker 1: public health officials are far more persuasive when they comprise
Speaker 1: a diverse group of people that exist somewhere across this
Speaker 1: political spectrum. I'm really curious, Maya, whether we're talking about
Speaker 1: moral reframing or nudge theory, or the broader ecosystem of
Speaker 1: everything under behavioral economics, how do people feel if they're
Speaker 1: aware of kind of the different ways that the government,
Speaker 1: from your job when you were at the White House,
Speaker 1: or private companies like Google where you are now, how
Speaker 1: do people feel like they're not being manipulated? My belief
Speaker 1: always is that everybody should know they're being nudged, because
Speaker 1: even nudges that are completely transparent are effective. Can you
Speaker 1: give an example of that. Absolutely, So this actually relates
Speaker 1: to the opiate epidemic. This is one of my favorite interventions.
Speaker 1: So it's a complicated problem, many underlying causes, but behavioral
Speaker 1: science does tell us about one of the causes, and
Speaker 1: it has the benefit of being again highly transparent, very
Speaker 1: low cost, and relatively easy to implement. Okay, let's think
Speaker 1: of about that moment in the doctor's office. When the
Speaker 1: doctor is first prescribing an opioid prescription for a patient.
Speaker 1: They're typically using some sort of software, and that software
Speaker 1: includes a default number, a preset number of pills to
Speaker 1: prescribe to the patient. What researchers found is that when
Speaker 1: they lowered this default number from thirty pills to twelve
Speaker 1: pills in the system, it decreased opioid prescriptions by across
Speaker 1: an entire health system. So in this case, like the
Speaker 1: researchers aren't pretending they're trying to fool the doctor, right,
Speaker 1: the number has changed in the system, and doctors are
Speaker 1: very mindful of the fact that this number has changed.
Speaker 1: But it is a really healthy nudge to make doctors
Speaker 1: slightly more thoughtful about just recommending the default number in
Speaker 1: there and trying to engage in some degree of critical
Speaker 1: thinking in order to make sure that they're they're giving
Speaker 1: the right amount. I always think of nudges as being
Speaker 1: the sort of thing that help people who already have
Speaker 1: this goal but are facing obstacles or barriers to get
Speaker 1: over the finish line. But it's just not powerful enough
Speaker 1: a tool or an instrument to actually convince people to
Speaker 1: do things that they don't already want to do. We'll
Speaker 1: be right back. Stay with us why I was just just
Speaker 1: going to ask, because we've now talked so much about nudges,
Speaker 1: and if you could just provide maybe a coherent definition
Speaker 1: of what a nudge is and what nudge theory is. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: behavioral economics teaches us that there are these very surprising
Speaker 1: factors that influence our behaviors, and a nudge is a
Speaker 1: design tweak that we might see in any given policy
Speaker 1: or program that reflects this understanding of the science of
Speaker 1: human behavior. One of my favorite examples, because this is
Speaker 1: an example that motivated me to go join the government
Speaker 1: in the first place, was in the domain of school lunches. Basically,
Speaker 1: the federal government has a program that offers millions of
Speaker 1: low income kids access to free or reduced price lunches
Speaker 1: at school. What we are finding is that even though
Speaker 1: we are offering this program, millions of kids were still
Speaker 1: going hungry every single day at school. It was a
Speaker 1: tragedy because the programs being offered, but parents aren't signing up.
Speaker 1: So we try to figure out, Okay, what are the
Speaker 1: behavioral factors that are underlying this lack of participation, and
Speaker 1: then how can we design a nudge that in turn
Speaker 1: helps solve it. And what we realize when we do
Speaker 1: this behavioral analysis is that one, parents aren't signing up
Speaker 1: because the application process is extremely burdensome. There's a single
Speaker 1: mom who's working three jobs to make ends meet, and
Speaker 1: then we're asking her to fill out this application form.
Speaker 1: It's requiring that she references old tax documents and there's
Speaker 1: a huge penalty if she gets one of these pieces
Speaker 1: of information wrong, and so we're setting her up for failure.
Speaker 1: And that's one barrier. Another barrier is stigma. So I
Speaker 1: remember when I was at the White House, I spoke
Speaker 1: with principles from different schools, like, for example, this one
Speaker 1: principle in Florida, who said, these folks work really hard,
Speaker 1: and the idea of actively signing their kids up for
Speaker 1: a public benefits program it's just a really hard thing
Speaker 1: for them to swallow. They don't like the stigma associated
Speaker 1: with having their kids rely on the government. So what
Speaker 1: the government did is utilize a nudge, which is an
Speaker 1: understanding that when something is the default option, when kids
Speaker 1: are automatically enrolled in a program, and parents only need
Speaker 1: to take an active step to unenrolled their kids, it's
Speaker 1: can significantly boost participation rates. So what we did is
Speaker 1: we are What the government did is it realized, hey,
Speaker 1: we we actually already have a bunch of data around
Speaker 1: these kids eligibility criteria because they're enrolled in things like
Speaker 1: Medicaid or women's and children's programs. We can use that
Speaker 1: data to automatically enroll eligible kids. So now as a default,
Speaker 1: all these kids are now getting access to school lunch,
Speaker 1: and like I said earlier, parents only need to take
Speaker 1: an affirmative step that they actively want to unenroll their kids.
Speaker 1: And as a result of this nudge, Chelsea like twelve
Speaker 1: and a half million more kids were now eating lunch
Speaker 1: at school every day. So my we've talked a lot
Speaker 1: about where nudges have worked. Can you talk about where
Speaker 1: either you or others in your field have had a
Speaker 1: lot of hope about a nudge having a similarly powerful
Speaker 1: impact and then it just not working. One place where
Speaker 1: I really see the limitations of nudges and behavioral sciences
Speaker 1: in the domain of changing your mind. I think nudges
Speaker 1: are very effective when a person has already decided that
Speaker 1: they want to do something that maybe the long term
Speaker 1: goals and their short term costs create some sort of tension.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I know I want to eat healthier,
Speaker 1: I know I want to exercise, but it's just so
Speaker 1: painful right now, and I'd rather watch TV and eat
Speaker 1: the ritos. And so nudges can be really effective at
Speaker 1: helping to bridge that gap. They have an intention to
Speaker 1: do something and you can translate it into action. There
Speaker 1: are a lot less effective when it comes to changing
Speaker 1: people's fundamental beliefs about the world, their actual attitudes, the
Speaker 1: opinions that they've made up over time. So, as you mentioned,
Speaker 1: I mean think your instincts are totally right. That yelling
Speaker 1: at people telling that that they're wrong, that doesn't work.
Speaker 1: What does work is what's known as motivational interviewing. This
Speaker 1: kind of strategy of interacting with people is a highly
Speaker 1: effective tool for moving the needle when it comes to
Speaker 1: mindset change. So here are some of the tips that
Speaker 1: listeners can take with them. So the first is you
Speaker 1: want to show genuine curiosity for the person's views. It
Speaker 1: needs to feel like a conversation that you're having. And
Speaker 1: one way to make it feel like a genuine conversation
Speaker 1: is to increase the number of questions you're asking versus
Speaker 1: the statements you're making. I could be like, Chelsea, you
Speaker 1: should think X, Y, and Z, or I could say, Chelsea,
Speaker 1: why is it that you think this thing? Like how
Speaker 1: did you come to develop these beliefs in the first place.
Speaker 1: Another technique that I think can be really powerful is
Speaker 1: reminding people of their agency that you're not forcing a
Speaker 1: mindset shift on them. Instead, you are recruiting their agency.
Speaker 1: You are are giving them the tools and maybe new
Speaker 1: information that they can then noodle with to try to
Speaker 1: change their own minds. And that's a much more sustainable process. Right.
Speaker 1: If someone feels like they came up with a new opinion,
Speaker 1: they changed their mind on their own terms, it's much
Speaker 1: more likely to be durable. Just on a on a
Speaker 1: personal level, have you personally nudged any of your family
Speaker 1: or friends? Are there any personal anecdotes you can share
Speaker 1: as a final question. So, I have a family member
Speaker 1: overseas who I felt like I was not taking COVID
Speaker 1: seriously enough and was like, I read that if you
Speaker 1: eat these specific foods, you're more likely to resist COVID,
Speaker 1: or you can build immunity towards COVID, and oh gosh,
Speaker 1: you know, my initial instinct was to be like, this
Speaker 1: is so insane. How can you believe these things? Like
Speaker 1: you're by genetic relative? And then I had to remind myself, Okay,
Speaker 1: don't forget that. You need to, you know, validate what
Speaker 1: he's saying, you know, repeat some of that back in
Speaker 1: your language. And I don't think I fully change things
Speaker 1: for him, but he did get vaccinated. I think though
Speaker 1: it matters my have for people to hear that that
Speaker 1: it's even for you, who is, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the world's leading experts on nudge theory, that you still
Speaker 1: have to do the hard work to hopefully anyone listening
Speaker 1: to usk and think, oh, well, I can do it too.
Speaker 1: There are a lot of concrete steps we can take
Speaker 1: in our own lives to try to help make a
Speaker 1: positive impact. I think what behavioral science teaches us is
Speaker 1: like it doesn't always have to feel so emotionally charged
Speaker 1: and explosive. Right. We can take these small steps and
Speaker 1: over time to slowly chip away because I think we
Speaker 1: can be more thoughtful about the way that we engage
Speaker 1: with others and how we approach the problem of behavior
Speaker 1: change or mindset change. Well man, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Thank you for your time, thank you for your work,
Speaker 1: thank you for your nudges, and hopefully I will have
Speaker 1: the chance to talk again soon. That sounds great. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much. Kelsee My's new podcast, A Slight Change
Speaker 1: of Plants is out this week, and trust me, you
Speaker 1: won't want to miss it. There's one thing we know
Speaker 1: for sure about encouraging more people to wear masks or
Speaker 1: get vaccinated. It's a lot harder because we're so politically
Speaker 1: polarized here in the US. Frank Lentz has seen and
Speaker 1: studied this phenomenon up close. He's a political communications expert, author,
Speaker 1: and pundit known for shaping Republican messaging and strategy over decades.
Speaker 1: He's also a Polster, who has run far more focus
Speaker 1: groups than just about anyone I know. As his Twitter
Speaker 1: bio says, he'll show you what Americans really think with data,
Speaker 1: facts and the occasional meme. I've been fascinated by the
Speaker 1: work Frank has done over the last several months to
Speaker 1: understand why some people are more likely to believe that
Speaker 1: COVID nineteen isn't a threat to them, and why then
Speaker 1: they're less likely to get a COVID nineteen vaccine. We
Speaker 1: caught up in between the classes he's currently teaching at
Speaker 1: Oxford University. Frank, thank you for just delving into this topic.
Speaker 1: You know, I think it makes sense to start with
Speaker 1: where do you think we are right now in term
Speaker 1: terms of people who want to get vaccinated, people who
Speaker 1: maybe think they might get vaccinated, and then people who
Speaker 1: may not want to get vaccinated. Where do you think
Speaker 1: we are? Well? I wish you'd been on my focus
Speaker 1: group last night, women eighteen to thirty nine. And the
Speaker 1: level of concern hesitation about getting the vaccine is so great,
Speaker 1: and it's not over issues of pregnancy or menstruation or
Speaker 1: any of the things that we've heard about. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that we've heard about it as real concerns from people anecdotally,
Speaker 1: The problem with them, or the challenge for them, is
Speaker 1: that COVID is not as serious to them. Many of
Speaker 1: them have had it, it took them a day or
Speaker 1: two to get over it, and they simply don't see
Speaker 1: the need, or they think that the vaccine is actually
Speaker 1: more dangerous than COVID itself, or they want other people
Speaker 1: to do it so they won't have to, and any
Speaker 1: of these, if it continues, means we will not reach
Speaker 1: herd immunity, which I'm coming less and less competent in.
Speaker 1: It means that we will never be as safe and
Speaker 1: secure as we could be. We know that for some
Speaker 1: people that really still are access challenges, for people who
Speaker 1: have mobility challenges, for whom we do need to very
Speaker 1: much go that last proverbial mile and bring the vaccines
Speaker 1: to them. We know that for many people who live
Speaker 1: in rural areas, for whom it's just too far a track,
Speaker 1: we need to bring vaccines to them. But we also
Speaker 1: know there are groups in our country for whom vaccines
Speaker 1: are available around the corner or increasingly at their local
Speaker 1: doctor's office or kind of their pharmacy, and they're still
Speaker 1: not going Frank, how do we think about the different
Speaker 1: groups that you've now spoken to and what may work
Speaker 1: to try to help encourage them to recognize that COVID
Speaker 1: is actually really serious. There are three different segments that
Speaker 1: we need to reach out to. The first and largest
Speaker 1: are Trump voters, and they don't want to be told
Speaker 1: what to do. They don't trust the government, they don't
Speaker 1: trust the facts. They believe that the media is dishonest
Speaker 1: with them, and they're very hard to convince because they
Speaker 1: believe that Donald Trump lost the election because of COVID,
Speaker 1: and so that makes them instantly more hesitant either about
Speaker 1: the virus or the vaccine. So many of them are
Speaker 1: in rural areas which are less likely to trust the
Speaker 1: vaccine or want to get it. And so many of
Speaker 1: them are anti government, which means that they won't even
Speaker 1: accept what the c d C says or the f
Speaker 1: d A or Anthony Faucci. That's group number one. Group
Speaker 1: number two or black and brown, and there's been a
Speaker 1: very successful effort from the Biden administration to reach out
Speaker 1: to them, to do so on their terms, but that
Speaker 1: black and brown community needs to hear from others in
Speaker 1: their community. That's what's going to make a difference for them,
Speaker 1: and then the third or eighteen the thirty nine year
Speaker 1: olds in general, particularly eighteen the thirty nine year old women,
Speaker 1: and for them it's somewhat of a fear, but it's
Speaker 1: also for some it's the feeling that they're either invincible
Speaker 1: or they're healthy. We're not reaching them the way that
Speaker 1: we need to. And I want to suggest one profession
Speaker 1: which has not been used enough, that works for all
Speaker 1: three of these groups. It's your pharmacist. I had a
Speaker 1: stroke last January. And I had a stroke because I
Speaker 1: ate too much, I traveled too much, I slept too little.
Speaker 1: I lived a very unhealthy life and it has and
Speaker 1: will continue to affect me for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: And because of that, I don't want anyone to make
Speaker 1: these decisions I made. I don't want anyone to make
Speaker 1: the mistakes I made. I want them to know that
Speaker 1: not taking care of yourself could and will have a
Speaker 1: negative consequence that you will never ever be able to shake.
Speaker 1: Getting COVID is so much worse. You don't have to
Speaker 1: be stuck with shortness of breath, you don't have to
Speaker 1: be stuck with the inability to taste, you don't have
Speaker 1: to be stuck with all of what COVID does to
Speaker 1: you if you get it, So don't make the same
Speaker 1: mistakes I did. Be proactive and listen to the people
Speaker 1: who really care about you, because it could save your life.
Speaker 1: And Frank, returning to your diagnosis, around Republicans who voted
Speaker 1: for President Trump, who are unlikely to certainly be standing
Speaker 1: in line first to get the COVID nineteen vaccines, have
Speaker 1: you found any messages or messengers that at least hopefully
Speaker 1: have the chance of working. The most amazing message would
Speaker 1: be delivered by Donald Trump and Joe Biden, together, the
Speaker 1: current president and the former president, each one delivering a
Speaker 1: sentence of thanks to the other, Donald Trump complimenting Joe
Speaker 1: Biden forgetting the vaccine out across the country incredibly fast,
Speaker 1: efficient and effective. Joe Biden giving Donald Trump credits for
Speaker 1: his administration developing the vaccine in a rigorous and detailed
Speaker 1: and scientific manner, and then the two of them saying,
Speaker 1: but don't trust us, trust our doctors, and let binds
Speaker 1: doctor and Trump's doctors safe. For the remaining fifty seconds
Speaker 1: of a sixty second ad that we know that this
Speaker 1: vaccine is safe. We know that it works. That's the
Speaker 1: most powerful message of all. But Chelsea, we're not going
Speaker 1: to do it because our politics are so divided. Now,
Speaker 1: I've been saying for months, I think, truly starting last October,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to watch President Trump get vaccinated on television.
Speaker 1: I can't wait for him to take credit for the
Speaker 1: extraordinary pace of vaccine development without sacrificing quality, without sacrificing safety.
Speaker 1: I've been asked repeatedly, do I wish the President Trump
Speaker 1: had been in the p s A with the four presidents?
Speaker 1: And I think before someone can finish asking the question,
Speaker 1: I say, yes, this should be ideally nonpartisan. But if
Speaker 1: we can't have it be nonpartisan, it at least needs
Speaker 1: to be bipartisan. So I just I couldn't agree more
Speaker 1: more enthusiastically and emphatically with my public health hat on
Speaker 1: with what you're saying. But but even better than the
Speaker 1: politicians is your doctor and your pharmacists. If you get
Speaker 1: a video from your doctor that's texted or emailed, you're
Speaker 1: gonna watch it of them will and if they tell
Speaker 1: you to get vaccinated, over those who have not been
Speaker 1: vaccinated are going to listen because it's your doctor and
Speaker 1: your pharmacists, they know you, and that would be even
Speaker 1: more powerful than the politicians. And in terms of the
Speaker 1: three messages that work best, that this vaccine is even
Speaker 1: more much more effective than the flu shot, which so
Speaker 1: many Americans take. That the vaccine that they cut bureaucracy
Speaker 1: and they cut red tape, but they didn't cut corners.
Speaker 1: One of the greatest phrases of all. And third is
Speaker 1: that over of all doctors have been vaccinated. Those are
Speaker 1: three messages and they absolutely positively work, particularly when when
Speaker 1: delivered by someone you know. And Frank, what advice would
Speaker 1: you have for people talking to their own family members
Speaker 1: who might be hesitant. And the most powerful familiar relationship
Speaker 1: is grandparents and grandchild. I joke that it's because they
Speaker 1: both have the same enemy, but it's actually true. Well,
Speaker 1: I was very close to my grandmother, like I talked
Speaker 1: to her every single day, Frank, So I love my
Speaker 1: parents a lot, but my grandmother had a super special
Speaker 1: place in my hurt. And that happens across the country.
Speaker 1: And it doesn't matter what ethnicity you are, doesn't matter
Speaker 1: what region of the country. People feel that closeness and
Speaker 1: the idea that grandparents and grandchildren can't hug. I know
Speaker 1: grandparents who have who are very sick and have somehow
Speaker 1: managed to stay alive because they want that embrace. Again.
Speaker 1: That the dream is to be able to tuck your
Speaker 1: grandchild in at night, be able to give them a
Speaker 1: kiss and say I love you, I love you, and
Speaker 1: to be able to do so with complete safety and
Speaker 1: security matters. That's the ad that I want. I think
Speaker 1: that makes a difference. So it's not the government telling
Speaker 1: you to do it. It's your grandma and your grandpa.
Speaker 1: We're taking a quick break, stay with us. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I've been really concerned about for many
Speaker 1: years is the misinformation, the disinformation around vaccines, especially which
Speaker 1: has largely been allowed to flourish unchecked online by the
Speaker 1: social media companies. And we have seen just an unprecedented
Speaker 1: explosion of misinformation around COVID and the COVID nineteen vaccines.
Speaker 1: How much of that do you see reflected in the
Speaker 1: surveys that you're conducting or the focus groups that you're
Speaker 1: you're conducting. It's not just misinformation or disinformation, it's in
Speaker 1: some case is no information at all that they give
Speaker 1: you all the reasons why they're hesitants and they've made
Speaker 1: no effort to confirm them, or they accept sources that
Speaker 1: nobody else would believe simply because it's easier for them
Speaker 1: to do so. I'm very upset with social media platforms
Speaker 1: and with the technology because in the end, their irresponsibility
Speaker 1: is causing people to die. I also know the part
Speaker 1: of it, the messaging, where the words themselves matter, where
Speaker 1: I blame the politicians. For example, call it a government
Speaker 1: mandate and you immediately agitate every right of center voter.
Speaker 1: Call it a protocol, and that's acceptable. Another example is
Speaker 1: the lockdown versus stay at home. Stay at home is
Speaker 1: you're at home. Lockdown is you're in prison. So every
Speaker 1: politician who used these phrases was actually causing a problem.
Speaker 1: And the one that's happening right now, and it's really
Speaker 1: agitating to me, is that they call it a vaccine passport. Well,
Speaker 1: to those on the left, a passport is something that
Speaker 1: will never some people never be able to own. It's expensive,
Speaker 1: it's exclusive. And on the right, a passport, a vaccine
Speaker 1: passport to them means more government involvement. You call it
Speaker 1: a vaccine verification, and the American people say, yes, you
Speaker 1: call it a vaccine passport. The public says, no, that's
Speaker 1: not misinformation, that's simply bad language. Frank, I do want
Speaker 1: to go back, though, to the eighteen to thirty nine
Speaker 1: year olds. What do you think would be sufficiently persuasive
Speaker 1: to the eighteen to thirty nine year old you've been
Speaker 1: talking to, so that they make a different risk assessment
Speaker 1: of COVID versus the COVID nineteen vaccines, and hopefully then
Speaker 1: are persuaded to get themselves vaccinated. It's not about them.
Speaker 1: It's about the people they love. It's about the people
Speaker 1: they want to protect. For an eighteen to thirty nine
Speaker 1: year old, it's about their grandparents and being able to
Speaker 1: see them in a safe and secure manner. If you
Speaker 1: try to make it about them, it will fail because
Speaker 1: they just don't fear COVID. If you try to make
Speaker 1: it about the side effects, they're much more afraid of
Speaker 1: the side effects of the vaccine than they are of
Speaker 1: the virus itself. And if you try to make a
Speaker 1: political argument, it just doesn't resonate. If I want eighteen
Speaker 1: to thirty nine year olds to get the shot, I
Speaker 1: need to tell them how easy it is, and I
Speaker 1: need to tell them that they will have a light
Speaker 1: at the end of the tunnel, and so often these interviews,
Speaker 1: I forget that if you want people get vaccinated, let
Speaker 1: them know that they can take their masks off. Let
Speaker 1: them know that they'll be able to celebrate the fourth
Speaker 1: of July like they used to. Let them know that
Speaker 1: our schools are going back and people are going back
Speaker 1: to work. If you don't tell them that, then they
Speaker 1: won't get vaccinated, and we will be under a threat
Speaker 1: from this, from this horrible virus. And I will acknowledge
Speaker 1: something to you. I don't even want to look at
Speaker 1: you when I say this. When I got the vaccine,
Speaker 1: the first shot in my arm, I started to cry
Speaker 1: because I had a pre existest in condition I was
Speaker 1: damaged from last year, and that shot to me was
Speaker 1: life itself. It was actually, I'm going to live. And
Speaker 1: I didn't know that for six or seven months. So
Speaker 1: I don't understand how people can be so cavalier. They
Speaker 1: gave me my life back, and I'm so grateful to
Speaker 1: those researchers, and I feel so blessed, and I want
Speaker 1: others to feel as blessed as I feel. Frank I
Speaker 1: cried too. I cried to when I got my first
Speaker 1: shot because it just felt it felt like hope. You know,
Speaker 1: I am curious. Has there been anyone that you've seen
Speaker 1: changed their mind who's been in that group? And if so,
Speaker 1: what changed their mind or not? Yes? Yes, and people
Speaker 1: have changed their minds and they tend to change their
Speaker 1: minds to get the vaccine, and it's usually because of
Speaker 1: interaction with their doctor and their pharmacists. But the problem
Speaker 1: of the eighteen to nine year olds is that they're
Speaker 1: not necessarily calling that they're just getting stuff off the web.
Speaker 1: That just getting superficial information. That's why we need to
Speaker 1: connect every person and the medical professional who may trust
Speaker 1: the most that will have the greatest impact and will
Speaker 1: have the fastest impact. Is there a next best alternative
Speaker 1: to your doctor? If you don't necessarily have a doctor,
Speaker 1: it's the closest person to you, maybe your child, that
Speaker 1: maybe your parents, maybe your spouse, but the person that
Speaker 1: you love most. Because in the end, if it's a
Speaker 1: message that's delivered from love and a message about returning
Speaker 1: to life itself, they'll do it. If it's a message
Speaker 1: that comes across like a mandate, like you must do it,
Speaker 1: you have to do it. You don't have a choice.
Speaker 1: It will be rejected. Even the tone, even the context
Speaker 1: of how we deliver this determines whether or not it's
Speaker 1: credible and whether or not people actually follow Frank. Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for all of your time. To learn
Speaker 1: about Frank's work and upcoming focus groups on this and
Speaker 1: other topics, follow him on Twitter at Frank Luntz. Changing
Speaker 1: people's minds isn't easy. In fact, it can be really hard,
Speaker 1: even with the best information from trusted messengers with the
Speaker 1: best intentions. But in this moment, when we're working so
Speaker 1: hard to vaccinate as many people as possible and learn
Speaker 1: from the COVID nineteen pandemic, it's really important. I hope
Speaker 1: that after listening to Maya and Frank, you might feel
Speaker 1: a little more confident about broaching and conversation with someone
Speaker 1: close to you who may not yet be convinced about
Speaker 1: getting vaccinated or making other decisions that you know are
Speaker 1: good for their health and our shared public health. Beyond
Speaker 1: the pandemic, the tools of informing and persuading that we
Speaker 1: heard about today can be effective when it comes to
Speaker 1: so many other topics in public health, including climate change,
Speaker 1: the stigma amount substance used disorders and addiction, and so
Speaker 1: much more. I, for one, I'm really glad that Maya,
Speaker 1: Frank and so many others are deeply committed to understand
Speaker 1: name what it really takes to get someone to take
Speaker 1: action or change their mind and build a healthier, more
Speaker 1: just country in the process. In Fact is brought to
Speaker 1: you by iHeart Radio. We're produced by Erica Goodmanson, Lauren Peterson,
Speaker 1: Cathy Russo, Julie Subrian, and Justin Wright, with help from
Speaker 1: the Hidden Light team of Barry Luriy, Sarah Harowitz, Nikki Huggett,
Speaker 1: Emily Young, and Hugh Abodeen, with additional support from Lindsay Hoffman.
Speaker 1: Original music is by Justin Wright. If you liked this
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Speaker 1: Thanks again for listening, and see you next week.