The thing about trying to minimise “priming” stimuli is that it seems to let little stimuli have big impacts, and, if you’re using a private or familiar collection of stimuli, it could cause unhealthy feedback loops. You’re never going to erase all the stimuli, and whichever ones get through could have a big impact on your decision making.
Imagine, for instance, you’re trying to make up your mind about Turkey joining the EU. Would you rather be in your room, where, let’s say, you’ve got a big, imposing English flag and a map of Europe, reminding you of Turkey’s geographical separation, or would you rather be at a café, where you can smell the delightful scents of the kebab shop across the street and taste your Turkish coffee just as well as see a woman in Niqaab, which may give you a bit of culture shock, or hear a brass band playing patriotic music?
So, controlling and reducing the number of stimuli might actually be worse than throwing yourself out into the world, where you get many, uncontrollable, conflicting stimuli. This suggests one way parochial attitudes develop: people make decisions based on local stimuli, which cause them to protect and reinforce the values and judgement associated with those stimuli, which causes them to introduce more, similar stimuli.
Frightening and insightful.
The thing about trying to minimise “priming” stimuli is that it seems to let little stimuli have big impacts, and, if you’re using a private or familiar collection of stimuli, it could cause unhealthy feedback loops. You’re never going to erase all the stimuli, and whichever ones get through could have a big impact on your decision making.
Imagine, for instance, you’re trying to make up your mind about Turkey joining the EU. Would you rather be in your room, where, let’s say, you’ve got a big, imposing English flag and a map of Europe, reminding you of Turkey’s geographical separation, or would you rather be at a café, where you can smell the delightful scents of the kebab shop across the street and taste your Turkish coffee just as well as see a woman in Niqaab, which may give you a bit of culture shock, or hear a brass band playing patriotic music?
So, controlling and reducing the number of stimuli might actually be worse than throwing yourself out into the world, where you get many, uncontrollable, conflicting stimuli. This suggests one way parochial attitudes develop: people make decisions based on local stimuli, which cause them to protect and reinforce the values and judgement associated with those stimuli, which causes them to introduce more, similar stimuli.