![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
During Science Friday today, one of the discussions was with social psychologist Todd Rogers on how likely voters are to notice that a politician is dodging the question asked. I found the segment fascinating. The bottom line was that, usually, the dodge wasn't noticed very well unless the dodge was fairly obvious. The more vague the question, the easier it was to prevaricate, to answer the question the politician would rather have been asked than the one that was offered. Also, according to Rogers, it's better to answer the wrong question well than to answer the correct one poorly.
But… he said that there is a way to make it easy to hear the dodge: when the politician answers, keep the question (in text form) on the screen. Then nearly everyone catches the dodge, and will realize that the question wasn't answered (and perhaps demand that it be answered.) So… I suggest that it might be good to have a groundswell of support asking that the organizations putting on the presidential and vice-presidential debates do exactly that: put the text of the question on the screen while the candidate is answering.
If the candidates start realizing that people are noticing the evasions, maybe we'd start getting straight and more direct answers.
But… he said that there is a way to make it easy to hear the dodge: when the politician answers, keep the question (in text form) on the screen. Then nearly everyone catches the dodge, and will realize that the question wasn't answered (and perhaps demand that it be answered.) So… I suggest that it might be good to have a groundswell of support asking that the organizations putting on the presidential and vice-presidential debates do exactly that: put the text of the question on the screen while the candidate is answering.
If the candidates start realizing that people are noticing the evasions, maybe we'd start getting straight and more direct answers.