When Facts & Beliefs Collide: What Non-Profits Can Learn from the Disney Measles Outbreak

The outbreak of measles traced to Disneyland has prompted a furious debate about vaccinations. It's a debate non-profit groups can learn from.

Even though proponents say the science is pretty clear about the safety of vaccines, people who fear them aren't buying it.

For every research paper or set of facts trotted out by experts, doctors and researchers, anti-vaxxers tell stories of kids who they say were damaged by vaccinations.

Nobody is giving a bit of ground.

But not only is the science-based approach not working, it's making opponents of vaccines even stauncher in their opposition.

That's what research from Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler shows. According to the study, a facts-based approach can make people hold those beliefs even more strongly.

Why is that? According to researchers, it's about self-preservation.

“When your sense of self and your worldview are challenged, you need to have a defense mechanism in place," said Reifler.

"It’s much easier to say ‘This information is wrong’ than to say, ‘How I view the world turned out not to be correct.’”

Don Braman of George Washington University is part of the Cultural Cognition Project, which studies how cultural values shape public perceptions and policy beliefs.

In an interview on NPR, he said that it's hard for people to accept a new way of seeing things if it conflicts with their cultural, friendship, peer or religious group.

He gave the example of a barber in a rural town in South Carolina. 

If the barber implored his customers to sign a petition urging Congress to take action on climate change, he might not only be ridiculed, he might lose all his friends and customers and be out of a job.

The cost of taking action for him is just too high.

For non-profit organizations, this debate about vaccines, beliefs and facts is instructive.

Like those who are pro-vaccines, we often use facts to try to convince people about the urgency or rightness of our positions.

And when people don't change, we pour on more facts and figures.

Soon, it's like trying to drink from a fire hose. It only frustrates us and annoys the listener.

So what to do?

One approach is what is known as the messenger effect, otherwise known as finding a champion.

What the messenger effect shows is that people are more receptive to new and challenging information if it comes from someone they know and respect.

What does this mean for non-profits?

For groups fighting climate change, it means that a farmer in western Canada is more apt to hear out another farmer on the subject—not a Toronto-based urban environmentalist.

Likewise, for groups trying to reach religious people, it means using someone from their own denomination or faith community who can use their own scriptures and traditions—not using information from a secular body or a non-believer.

It's about finding the right people, in other words, not just sharing the right information.

When someone we know tells us how they changed their mind, or why they believe what they do, we are more apt to take them seriously. 

As American diplomat Ralph Bunche said: "If you want to get across an idea, wrap it up in person."

I don't know if this will have any effect on the vaccination debate. But it might help your non-profit communicate better with the public.

Read more about this subject in the New York Times.