If you want to see an outstanding demonstration of the difference between persuasion and advocacy/activism/truthtelling, see the movie, “Thank You for Smoking.” Jason Reitman’s screenplay (based on the novel by Christopher Buckley) deftly illustrates the classic principles of persuasion in the main character, Nick Naylor, a lobbyist for the tobacco industry through contrast with virtually all the “good guy” characters, like the Senator from Vermont and various advocates in the health community.

Realize that the movie does not instruct in persuasion principles, but rather as all good movies do, simply shows those principles in action through the words and deeds of Nick Naylor, big tobacco mouthpiece. Thus, you have to think while you watch the movie and look for the tactic because no one is going to tell you when it happens.

An excellent illustration of this occurs in a scene where Nick takes a shiny aluminum briefcase stuffed with stacks of $100 bills (just like a drug purchase in a gritty movie about cocaine) to the farm of Loren Lutch, the “Marlboro Man,” who is dying, ironically, of lung cancer. The Marlboro Man, well performed by Sam Elliott, has gone public with the vast hypocrisy of his own life since it was his image on billboards and commercials selling death and now he’s dying from the product he sold with his rugged cowboy masculinity. To silence him, Big Tobacco has dispatched Nick with the money. When Lutch spots Nick with the shiny briefcase, he immediately knows it’s a payoff and he’s angry about it. Lutch is sincere about his anger and his first response is to reject the obvious blood money.

But then, Nick persuades. He tells Lutch that he should take all of it, then call a press conference. Nick then shows Lutch how to run a press conference that will absolutely kill the tobacco industry, offering the words and deeds Lutch should use for maximum effect. In brillant form, Nick shows Lutch how to artfully pour the stacks of bills out of the shiny briefcase in a cascade of shameful guilt. Lutch stands in slack jawed wonder at the power of this demonstration and the realization that his enemy, Nick, is showing him how to do this. Then, Nick hits him with the killer close. ” . . . and you announce that you are taking all of this money, all of it, every dirty dollar, to create a new foundation aimed at smoking prevention.”

Lutch ponders this a moment then asks, “All of it? I’m dying. What about my family? Can’t I keep half of it?” Nick wanly shakes his head and Lutch realizes that he can only refuse the money (leaving his family in a tough situation) or take it and remain silent (helping his family, but corrupting his outrage).

I won’t give up the outcome here - it’s a good movie worth watching.

The point, however, remains. Nick takes a moment of genuine and deeply felt outrage and finds the means of persuasion to convince an angry man to think differently. Throughout the movie, the Nick character demonstrates that in a truly free and open society where we operate in the marketplace of ideas, the person who can persuade is the more effective agent than those who think they are armed with morality, truth, or outrage.

Remember the Rules, all bad persuasion is sincere. Throughout this movie, sincere people like a Senator and health advocates are shown to be sincerely angry, outraged, and filled to the brim with science and truth, yet they appear foolish, ineffectual, and charmless. You don’t bring a knife to a gun fight and you don’t bring sincerity to a debate.

We employ persuasion under circumstances of uncertainty, doubt, and complexity. We do not employ persuasion when the situation is clear, obvious, and simple. Sincerity has a way of making you think that things are clear when they are uncertain. It does not matter whether the Tobacco Industry is “good” or “evil.” What matters is persuasion. And, I’d ask, which is worse: An evil person who uses persuasion as a means of advancing evil or a good person who cannot use persuasion to stop evil because of sincerity? Why can’t a good person restrain sincerity and use persuasion skillfully?

At 2:35am after a long day on the road, I can’t quite figure out the persuasion angle, but when I do, I’ll repost on this and see if I can write off this trip with the IRS . . .

I’m just back home from Acapulco. I took Melanie there for the past six days for an early wedding anniversary vacation. We stayed at the Fairmont Princess and had a fabulous good time. The experience was a lot like being at home except it was always 88 degrees, everyone had a tan and you could tell because most of them were wearing bikinis, the skies were blue and the clouds light and puffy, everyone you met was friendly, kind, and happy, oh, and did I mention there was a beach and an ocean?

The best part was spending a week alone with my wife. She’s the girl of my dreams even after twenty eight years of marriage. The thunderbolt of eternal love struck me the instant I met her and I had several flashbacks during our week in Mexico. On those days when I’m nothing but an idiot and the world conspires against me, I know I have my girl and find hope for the future. When even a fool like me finds love like this, it must mean there’s a lot going on out there that I don’t really understand.

Now, upon some reflection, it occurs to me that there were several most interesting persuasion applications during this trip . . . and after a good night’s sleep, I’ll dazzle you with them. Or else post up pictures.

I’m going to whack the scientific and medical communities in this post, so let’s start with a big point. Science is a lot like Winston Churchill’s observation about democracy. Paraphrasing him, democracy is the worst form of government except compared to every other form of government ever tried. To complete the analogy, science is the worst form of human knowing except for every other form tried. Thus, science is generally a good thing, but it ain’t perfect because it’s still people who are doing it. Thus, while it is a good idea to look for science when possible, you shouldn’t stop thinking simply because some science exists on a topic.

The latest evidence for the combination of science plus skepticism comes from the howling we hear from the medical community about the effects of hormone replacement therapy. Let’s quote a recent news story:

“U.S. breast cancer rates plunged an unprecedented 7 percent in 2003, the year after millions of women stopped taking menopause hormones when a study showed the pills raise the risk of tumors.

The startling new analysis, reported Thursday at the San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, does not prove a link between hormone therapy and breast cancer, but strongly suggests it, many experts said.

“When I saw it, I couldn’t believe it,” statistician Donald Berry of the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston said of the drop.”

Sounds like great news, doesn’t it? Picture the scene . . . stunned medical researchers and physicians staring with slack jaws at bar charts showing the greatest single year decline in breast cancer cases ever recorded. Somebody must have discovered the greatest pill since aspirin. Except the decline isn’t caused by people taking a pill but rather from people not taking a pill. Not taking a pill all these slack jawed marvels thought was the greatest pill since aspirin just a few years ago. Turns out all the science they were sure you could find behind HRT didn’t exist. Too bad no one did that science before they prescribed it to millions of women.

That quote about . . . “does not prove a link between hormone therapy and breast cancer, but strongly suggests it . . .” is a bit odd in this context. Looking at some of the strongest scientific evidence anyone can produce in this field, Experts are skeptical about drawing causal links between the decrease in HRT use and the decrease in breast cancer cases. A few years ago when everyone had a pill to push and had considerably less scientific evidence about the potential harms of HRT, nary a peep of scientific skepticism was heard. Everyone just knew without having to do the science that HRT was safe and effective.

If you’re trained as a scientist you can go to Medline, the National Institutes of Health’s online medical library, and do your own key word searches on HRT and discover for yourself just how weak the science at that time was. If you’re not trained as a scientist, one compelling piece of information you can easily confirm with your own physician is to ask if HRT was an “off-label” prescription. Off-label means that the physician is prescribing the pill beyond the scientific evidence for that problem. In other words, the physician didn’t use direct evidence, but rather drew inferences and made assumptions. Thousands of MDs went off-label with HRT and prescribed it knowing that there was no direct scientific evidence for its safety or effectiveness. They just assumed it because of the existing science from other applications. And millions of women took those pills like good little girls without realizing they were participating in one of the largest natural drug tests ever done in the history of medical science.

Quick replay: thousands of medical scientists and physicians use science and conclude that HRT is safe and effective, but then when they go “off-label” and wisely assume that HRT is safe and effective past the basic research, tens of thousands of excess breast cancer cases emerge and then when everyone goes off “off-label” breast cancers case drop in the largest reduction ever seen.  Isn’t “science” supposed to be the royal road to truth? Let’s finish the way we started. Science is the worst form of human knowing except for every other form tried. Clearly, even scientists have trouble always doing science.

It’s also interesting to look at how people are reacting to all of this from a persuasion perspective. Scientists are people too and subject to the same rules as we all are. Scientists freely chose a behavior (recommend HRT for menopausal women) without good science behind that behavior. Then, it turns out that the behavior leads to negative consequences. That is the classic path to dissonance. Now, when dissonance is elicited, people are motivated to get rid of it. How do you get rid of dissonance? Well, the classic path here comes from Attribution Theory. When you freely chose to do something that leads to a negative consequence, you can avoid dissonance with an external attribution. “You know why I did that? I did it because Something Else made me do it.” (For the oldest literate demonstration of this please consult Persuasion in Literature and Adam, Eve, the serpent, and the apple.)

Okay, thousands of women got breast cancer at least prematurely and possibly needlessly because they took pills off label as prescribed by their physicians. There’s got to be a bad guy here and anybody who’s been following American health care can tell you who the first likely suspect will be: the drug companies. Hey, they made the pill. They made the physicians prescribe it. They made billions of dollars in profit. They are the bad guys!!!!

In the interest of full disclosure let me note that I was a paid consultant to one drug company in 2002 while I was a scientific administrator in the CDC. (You can imagine the paperwork that I had to complete to get that clearance.) Over one weekend I met with about 20 other Experts to discuss the problem of medical compliance. Believe it or not, up to 50% of people do not properly take their prescribed medical regimen. This panel was convened by the drug company to come up with new ideas for motivating people to follow all the instructions all the time, especially with drug use. It was a great trip held in San Juan during the winter. I brought Melanie along and she had a great time, so I had a great time, too. Plus, it was interesting working with all these other Experts in a wide variety of fields. The drug company did an excellent job of squeezing ideas out of the best minds they could find and, as these things go, at a fairly cheap price. If they got even one good practical idea out of this gang, it could potentially be worth millions of dollars in sales and profit to them. They did not pay us anywhere near the potential value. I have also been a paid consultant with a variety of medical practice and research groups over the years so I’ve been bought off by that side of the street, too. I’m filled with biases from my past as an academic, government administrator, and consultant. And in the interests of even more disclosure, I have close relationships with women who’ve had breast cancer following HRT. It’s a tangled web. Okay, so it’s disclosed and now you know my hidden agenda in this. Back to the disaster . . .

More HRT use caused more breast cancer. The drug companies made HRT, sold it, and profited from it. So, thinking the way the medical community reasoned years ago about the potential benefit of HRT, it’s obvious the drug companies must be the bad guys here. While writing this post, I did a quick Google search (terms: off label hormone replacement therapy) and found several websites already pointing digital fingers (there’s a cute irony, “digital fingers”). Please check out either this post at the Columbia Journalism Review and another from a blogging physician. Both identify those bad drug company boys and girls as culprits. Yes, I’m wildly overgeneralizing from one case to the whole population (as if CJR speaks for all journalists). I’ll take my chances that my inferences about how journalists and physicians view this and take a big leap with the assumption that they mostly agree: The Pharmas Did It!

Okay. Without any exception, exemption, or excuse, the pharmas own a large slice from the pie of guilt baked up in this disaster. They did promote the pills. Relentlessly. Effectively. Cleverly. They followed the advice from Blake in “Glengarry Glen Ross,” Always Be Closing and that’s what the pharmas did.

But, so did journalists and so did physicians. To hear the CJR try and wash clean the dirty hands of American media here is beyond my ability to restrain laughter during “American Idol.” Journalists in print, radio, and electronic outlets did no, none, zero, zed, zip, nada “investigative reporting” on HRT even though the weak research record was easily available and understandable. Journalists, too, are driven for the bottom line and Always Be Closing is just a standard part of corporate journalism. They didn’t look because it was too easy to just report what they heard and it was too profitable to report what they heard.

And, physicians. The one blog post is hardly representative of the group. I’ve spoken on a personal basis with a few physicians and they will all point to pharmas as a source, but they will never accept any responsibility for their own off-label prescriptions. They will point their fingers at pharmas even though none of those pills could have been taken if the physicians hadn’t written the script for it. And if MDs are so weak of character that the bad boy pharmas can literally and legally make them write script against their better judgment, then what kind of judgment do MDs really possess? Apparently, the kind of judgment that can be bought and sold rather easily. Wouldn’t it be wiser for the AMA to stand up quickly and take this one on the chin. Yep, we were wrong. We didn’t do our due diligence with the science on this one. We’re not sure exactly how much of the blame is ours, but it’s big enough to warrant our acknowledgement. But that declaration would mean a lot of dissonance and dissonance ain’t fun.

There will probably be a train wreck in some American court rooms over this. Pharmas will write a big check, but I don’t think that physicians will escape unharmed financially or reputationally. Journalists will have a great time with this story. They will act indignant with everyone and send out swarms of investigative reporters who will get to the bottom of it all the same way Woodward and Bernstein did with Watergate: They’ll read court documents publicly available and act as if they risked their lives like you see in a Hollywood movie.

And all this is predictable, explainable, and possible through understanding the persuasion concepts of dissonance and attribution. Maybe . . . there’s certainly more going on and not every person involved can be understood this easily or simply. But, the ideas do apply, have merit, and make sense within these limits.

This is a long and complex post, so let’s summarize. Science is great for knowing, but sometimes it fails largely because scientists are people and they fail. And, these failures can be understood through persuasion concepts. Like I saw all this coming, right? Of course, not.

Can Hollywood change the world? Really. I’m not talking about fashion, style, or trend, but real serious behavior change. Can a movie motivate action? More accurately, can movie producers use movies to motivate action? Let’s consider a recent example.

“Syriana,” the movie, released in 2005 is an excellent Hollywood example to analyze for our question. The plot addresses an issue of continuing political concern, the global politics of oil, and presents an analysis of the problem. “Syriana” determines that unscruplous oilmen, sleazy influence-peddlers, and high level CIA administrators combine to squeeze every drop of oil from Middle East countries while simultaneously seducing Arab princes into a lifestyle of excess to the detriment of the liberalization of their helpless, good-hearted people. These evil American forces prevent Middle Eastern countries from achieving liberal democracy through their greed and ambition. Finally, “Syriana” urges that these evil American forces of greed and ambition cause acts of international terrorism through the recruitment of desperate Muslims trapped in poverty.

Regardless of the creative merits of the movie (see the Internet Movie Data Base or the Movie Review Query Engine for reviews) I want to take its persuasion concepts seriously. The movie clearly identifies the structural factors that drive this enormously important political issue. The three primary factors are oil companies, lobbyists, and CIA administrators and operatives. Syriana argues through movie techniques (rather than Madison Avenue ads or New Yorker profiles, etc.) that if good people would control the actions of these three players, the world would be a better place.

Let’s take the movie at face value and accept the argument. The Three Evil Actors are the main cause of Arab Muslim oppression and distress, significantly and actively retard the deeply desired development of liberal democracy in the Middle East, and serve to pervert the American political system. Now, let’s march on the castle with burning torches and Change Things For The Better “Syriana.”

How we do this must be pretty obvious because the movie itself provides strange guidance on the action step. “We’ve identified the cause, so the solution is easy; just get rid of the causal forces.” Hey, just fire those bad guys at the CIA. Do something about those greedy oilmen. Oh, and ban all lobbyists. And how do you do this?

If you visit the “Syriana” website you will find a link to an action website. Here they boldly offer a series of steps anyone can take to change the world for better.

Hmmm, let’s see . . . how do we reign in that out of control CIA? How about a “Virtual March” on Washington, DC? You and the producers of “Syriana” will rid the CIA of evildoers through email!

Hmmm, let’s see . . . how do we end our addiction to oil (which will hurt the sleazy oilmen in the wallet)? Just download this spiffy PDF which contains fabulous Action Steps you can take all by yourself with no help from “Syriana.” Consider these dazzlingly actions: Weatherize your house! Share car rides! Combine several short car trips into one longer trip! Use energy efficient appliances!

Can “Syriana” be any more lazy and irresponsible? Share a ride. Put weather strips around your windows. This is going to seriously address the serious problem “Syriana” observes?

Let’s do some math on this to evaluate movie’s commitment to influence with responsibility. If you Google around for movie financial information you’ll find it cost about $50 million to create the movie (production and marketing costs). To date (January 1, 2007)”Syriana” has grossed just under $100 million. The movie received awards. It got lots of buzz in the big media sources for its intellectual content. It’s obvious they made some money on this one. And if they spent more than $1,000 putting up their Participate website, I should open a business providing useless, but attractive websites to Hollywood unElectables.

So, the producers pony up $50 million to change the world about oil. That’s a pretty serious number. Except they got all of that back, plus some extra. They will keep that extra amount. Except for the $1,000 they spent on the Participate website with all that groovy information about weatherizing, car pooling, and energy efficient appliances. And that website will help “Syriana” change the world.

What’s even more amazing about this is that it appears that everyone involved is serious about this. I watched a PBS episode (12/21/05) of “Charlie Rose” with several movie critics discussing “Syriana” as if it were a piece of serious political rhetoric. Read some of the comments “Syriana” viewers offer on the Participate.net website. They believe what they are saying. They are sincere.

When you stop and think about what this movie claims, you realize how lazy these influence agents are. They believe that they can use a popular entertainment to drive people to a website that recycles ideas that have been around since the year after Henry Ford invented the Model T and that this will influence large number of people to modify their own energy use and cause significant change to the operation of a government agency.

Using these influence tactics even George Clooney couldn’t get elected to the school board although they did help him and his investors earn a profit of $50 million for his creative efforts.

Now, of course, it is possible that Clooney et al. are operating on a different persuasion target. Instead of using “Syriana” to change the world, they were using “Syriana” to make people believe they were trying to change the world in the hopes that this perception would generate more sales. Hmmmm.

All bad persuasion is sincere.

The action website reeks of sincerity. Everyone wears their hearts on their sleeves and now a year after the release of the movie and the action website, it is obvious that it had no impact on oil policy or prices or the CIA or Middle Eastern princes and pirates.

One of the Rules is: Persuaders can be famous or effective, but not both.

To the extent that Clooney et al. are famous as persuaders, they are ineffective at behavior change (that lame website). To the extent that Clooney et al. are effective as persuaders, they would be infamous for getting rich in such a way.

If you get around the Internet and are interested in current events, you’ve probably visited the LA Times website and might have even followed the ups and downs of this newspaper. For some folks, the LA Times is a major source of power in their world and they are upset at its more centrist editorializing, particularly with the recent firing of Robert Scheer. If you are an activist and a major media outlet is starting to get out of tune with your harmony, what do you do?

How about this . . . (described at the LA Observed blog)

“We embrace an inside/outside strategy, whereby subscribers lobby from within and non-subscribers, withholding their subscriptions, exert pressure from without. Please let us know (xxxxxx@aol.com) if you want to pursue an inside (subscribe) or outside (boycott) strategy.” This is the persuasion tactic that a group of Southern California progressives is going to apply to get the LA Times to add an anti-war leftist opinion writer to the editorial page or to drop right wing writers. If you had a good psych class in high school or college or if you are parent, you should recognize this tactic.Just about any normal human being quickly learns that consequences shape behavior. Get a reward and you’ll do that again. Get a punisher and you’ll move to the other side of the street. Professor B.F. Skinner is the iconic public figure for this theory and you might even remember seeing pictures of him standing beside a box that was the reinforcement environment for Skinner’s research subjects: Pigeons, rats, mice, and sometimes people.

SoCa progressives want to build a Skinner box for the LA Times. Through a combination of rewards (continuing subscriptions if your editorial page pleases me) and punishments (withholding subscriptions until your editorial page pleases me), these folks hope to shape the LA Times in a more congenial and progressive direction.

This appears to be fairly straightforward, serious, and potentially effective. Disgruntled folks organize themselves into an economic Skinner box and make the LA Times the lab rat (or if Professor Skinner was still alive to consult with them, I’d assume he would prefer to think of the LA Times as a pigeon) and keep whacking away with rewards and punishers until the rat does what you want it to do.

Unfortunately, this is bad persuasion and in a political context, I’ll call this the “Politics of the unElectable.” While these folks are serious about themselves, they are not serious about creating the change they seek. Let’s think about this for just a minute.

What kind of effort must these people exert to run their Skinner box? They can organize via email and websites, maybe an infrequent phone conversation. From the comfort of their homes, they can implement their chosen reinforcers with the touch of a few keystrokes as they subscribe to the Times online and pay with credit card or they can send an email to the Times to let the Times know they are withholding the subscription. Every now and then maybe as many as two or three hundred of these kindred spirits can plan and execute a picket at the LA Times.

In other words, they will expend about as much effort as it takes to open an account with one’s preferred pornography website. (Except for the picketing thing . . . that’s more like organizing a group appearance at an adult bookstore.)

While it is low effort, the effort is nonetheless gratifying although not in the same way as with the pornography website. Don’t you remember how good you felt composing that letter to the editor, getting the dictionary and maybe the thesaurus, showing each draft to your spouse or your dog or your cat. Then sending the thing off. Take that! The psychological payoff for cheap protest is not to be underestimated. In fact, I suspect the less you do, the better the protest feels for reasons best explained by Dissonance Theory which we’ll leave for another post far distant in the future.

But, sometimes even low effort can bring big rewards assuming you’ve got a great persuasion tactic. And what’s wrong with a Skinner box the for LA Times?

You gotta control all the significant sources of reinforcement for the rat or the pigeon or child or newspaper if you expect the Skinner box to work. If you’re whacking your kids with a punishing consequence for not cleaning their rooms and your spouse is whacking them with a rewarding consequence for expressing their individuality, you’ve got a failed Skinner box (but probably a pretty standard family).

Look, the Times is a multizillion dollar going concern. Yeah, it is suffering right now along with a lot of newspapers as they struggle to keep a preWeb business model making profit while they figure out a new business model for a postWeb world. But the passionate and principled actions of a few hundred subscribers is not even close to being a significant source of reinforcement for the Times. And as long as advertisers keep the ad dollars flowing no activist group from the left or right is going to materially affect the Times editorial board with a Skinner box tactic. And we haven’t even started on what the bad guys (the neocon right wing fascist cabal) are doing to keep the Times moving right. The progressive Skinner box affects nothing and no one except for the progressives’ state of mind.

This analysis cannot be that subtle, difficult, or arcane. Certainly even some of the folks in the group must have voiced a concern about this. (Unless they have become the dreaded Echo Chamber or Groupthink Gang).

Remember the Rules. All bad persuasion is sincere. If you can’t succeed, don’t try.