Honest leaders can improve the public’s resistance to disinformation and conspiracy theories

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By being honest, leaders can improve the public’s resistance to disinformation and conspiracy theories. Uncertainty can make us act like rats on meth. No, really. It's not hyperbole. Leaving us in the dark affects how we think and behave for the worse. open.substack.com/pub/novelscience/p/by-being-honest-leaders-can-improve

A 2020 study at Yale found that our response to uncertainty can sometimes look like the behavior of laboratory rats that chronically use methamphetamines.

Uncertainty has such a negative effect that it can be more distressing than the actual negative event that worries us.

Panic is rare. Fear of it does not justify withholding information. After five decades studying scores of disasters such as floods, earthquakes and tornadoes, one of the strongest findings is that people rarely lose control (Clarke, 2002).

When we fear that leaders are not telling us the truth or doubt we have been protected from a threat, we listen to our instinct to survive. That’s not panic. That's logical.

In the time it takes for credible reporting to publish, people will look for answers. We are not necessarily good at weighing information and will look even if credible information is absent.

The information seeking can overwhelm us or allow disinformation to be the first message, giving bad actors an edge over credible sources. Being the first message is an advantage but that can then be exacerbated by a declining ability to take in new information.

Changes like these, may make us more receptive to conspiracy theories and disinformation. By being upfront, leaders can decrease our uncertainty, limit the negative affect that crisis has on our minds, and gain an edge over bad actors who intend to exploit the situation.

A good example of this was telling the world Russia would invade. People who listened to those that were like this is CIA FEAR MONGERING woke up one day in February to learn we were told the truth and I believe the benefit of that move is yet unappreciated.

It doesn’t erase our mistrust because of the WMD intel failure. But it’s somewhere to start.