The Power Of Paradoxes To Change Attitudes

The paradox is an idea that differs from public opinion that is considered factual. Paradoxes are made up of metaphors and phrases that seem to contradict each other. There are many kinds of paradoxes regarding logic, infinity, probability, physical and geometric reality.

Many of these paradoxes are part of our daily lives, even though we are not always aware of them. One of these is the Monty Hall dilemma. Have you heard about it?

The Monty Hall dilemma

The Monty Hall dilemma is a mathematical probability problem based on an American TV competition program. In this competition, participants choose one of three doors, each of which is currently closed. A prize car awaits behind one door, but a goat is hidden behind the other doors.

Once a competitor has selected a particular door, the race presenter – who knows what each door hides behind him – opens one of the doors that the competitor did not select. A goat appears from there. The competitor is then allowed to choose whether he wishes to change his original selection.

In this situation, the competitor has two options: to change his choice or to stick to the original choice. Should he stick to his original choice or change it?  Does it have any meaning?

It seems to matter. Changing the original answer is a better option, at least when it comes to probability. When one door with a goat behind it opens, it is no longer included in the probability calculation. Therefore, its probability is full zero.

The probability that a competitor originally chose the door that hid the car behind him is 1/3. So the probability that the car is behind those originally unselected doors is 2/3. When the presenter opens the door to reveal the goat, that door is no longer counted. Therefore, its probability is zero.

When this door is left out of the calculation, a 2/3 probability now applies to that closed door that was not originally selected. A common misconception is that there would now be an equal probability between doors that are still closed, i.e. a 50% chance that there would be a car behind them. The competitor’s original response also included the door that the presenter now opened. It is therefore not a random choice.

If the competitor’s original choice is a door with a car behind it, the presenter will not open any other doors. If a competitor now chooses another door, he will lose the car. On the other hand, if a competitor initially chooses a door with a goat behind it, the presenter has only one door to open. The one behind which is also the goat. In this situation, there is a car behind the remaining door, and changing the answer means profit.

In summary, therefore, if there is a car behind the originally selected door, the competitor wins by sticking to his original choice (which is a 1/3 probability). However, if there was a goat behind the originally selected door, by changing his choice he can win the car (which is a 2/3 probability). Therefore, a competitor should change his choice if he wants to maximize his probability of winning the car.

The power of paradoxes

Paradoxical thought consists of impossibilities of thoughts that appear to be provable. Such thoughts can help change people’s attitudes. If someone makes an individual’s beliefs ridiculed with paradoxes that show those beliefs in a senseless or unworthy light, he or she may begin to question and feel the need to change their beliefs. Let’s look at an example of this.

A group of Israeli scholars conducted the experiment in a small town known for its high percentage of far-right support. This completed  campaign contained a paradoxical idea with which researchers hoped to soften the opinions of the radical population.

For six weeks, they exposed city residents to their campaign, which included posters by the roadsides, marketing items like globes, pins and t-shirts, and online videos and information. The posters and pins were toyed with thoughts and phrases like “Without him, we will never be quite…”, “To achieve justice, we probably need conflicts” and “For heroes, we probably need contradictions.” For their part, the videos presented similar messages with images comparable to them.

Following the campaign, a survey was conducted to find out people’s views on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The results of the survey among the population in the area covered by this campaign were compared with the results of the population living elsewhere, in areas not covered by the campaign.

People who participated in the survey did not know they had participated in the psychological experiment. The results showed that perceptions of conflict were similar in all but one group. In the opinions of people who had originally supported the far right and who had been exposed to the campaign, support for long-term conflict had diminished.

Intervention through paradoxical thinking had an impact on the beliefs and attitudes of the far-right population. These people expressed a decrease in their support for aggressive policies as well as an increase in their support for conciliatory policies. By reducing people’s ideas to absurdism, the desire to incite war diminished.