How popular an idea is affects how likely we are to believe it

I’m currently working on a class about how mental models can change. Mental models are the underlying beliefs, stereotypes, values, etc., that we hold that influence how we think and act. They also influence what policies and politicians we’ll support. We often aren’t aware of our mental models, especially when they match the models of the dominant culture around us. An example is whether you see nature as having intrinsic value, value in and of itself, or if it only has value as determined by the ability for humans to use it as a resource.

Perhaps unsurprisingly in the current day, researchers are finding that the more popular people think an idea is, the more likely they are to endorse that belief. Orticio, Marti, and Kidd (2022) found that even without any direct evidence of the truth of a claim, participants would change their beliefs based on the data from an anonymous 10-person sample that conflicted with their previous belief. The amount that it conflicted was held the same. All the items related to unsupported beliefs from a variety of different topics.

What does this mean? If people were shown that a belief is more common than they originally thought, they would see the claim as more plausible, even though they saw no evidence to support the belief itself. Clearly this has huge implications for our world today. In Alberta, we just held a referendum which did see strong support for staying in Canada. However, the other nine questions, many of which were racist are looking like they passed. Of course, the Alberta Government has been campaigning for these nine questions to encourage citizens to vote for them. There were a number of other issues as well with them such as requiring extremely high reading levels. But, given this research about people changing their beliefs based on unverified data but social support, I can see where having the government campaigning for a particular answer could sway people towards a view they may not truly support.

How do you ensure that your beliefs are your own and that you seek out data not popularity to support your views?