"The intriguing thing about the effects of censoring information is not that audience members want to have the information more than they did before; that seems natural. Rather, it is that they come to believe in the information more, even though they haven’t received it." - mind-blowing, see below.

Hey guys,

I've now finished 10 books on my 2024 finish-my-half-read-books-plus-some-new-ones challenge.

I'm currently reading Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion by Robert B. Cialdini, PhD.
It's apparently the book Charlie Munger (R.I.P.) gives most often as a present and is his "top recommendation".

I am learning many interesting things... far too many to try to summarise here (tbh it's probably a book that needs to be read multiple times for it all to stick.)

However there's one finding I read and immediately thought to share with you, re the psychological effects of censoring information. FASCINATING. See below.

Psychological Reactance:​
​The tendency to want what has been banned and therefore to presume that it is more worthwhile is not limited to such commodities as laundry soap [preceding example was about how consumers changed their views on how effective a laundry detergent was after it was banned]. In fact, the tendency is not limited to commodities at all but extends to restrictions on information. In an age when the ability to acquire, store, and manage information is becoming increasingly the determinant of wealth and power, it is important to understand how we typically react to attempts to censor or otherwise constrain our access to information. Although much data exist on our reactions to various kinds of potentially censorable material—media violence, pornography, radical political rhetoric—there is surprisingly little evidence as to our reactions to the act of censoring them. Fortunately, the results of the few studies that have been done on the topic are highly consistent. Almost invariably, our response to the banning of information is a greater desire to receive that information and a more favourable attitude toward it than before the ban.​
​
​The intriguing thing about the effects of censoring information is not that audience members want to have the information more than they did before; that seems natural. Rather, it is that they come to believe in the information more, even though they haven’t received it. For example, when University of North Carolina students learned that a speech opposing coed dorms on campus would be banned, they became more opposed to the idea of coed dorms. Thus, without ever hearing the speech, they became more sympathetic to its argument. This raises the worrisome possibility that especially clever individuals holding a weak or unpopular position can get us to agree with that position by arranging to have their message restricted. The irony is that for such people—members of fringe political groups, for example—the most effective strategy may not be to publicise their unpopular views, but to get those views officially censored and then to publicize the censorship. Perhaps the authors of this country’s Constitution were acting as much as sophisticated social psychologists as staunch civil libertarians when they wrote the remarkably permissive free-speech provision of the First Amendment. By refusing to restrain freedom of speech, they may have been attempting to minimize the chance that new political notions would win support via the irrational course of psychological reactance.

I wonder whether the journalists censoring certain presidential candidates in the US might change their strategy if they understood the above...

This week on Growing Up with Delia Burgess​
Ep. 91 - Joshua Boateng: professional boxing, Naples, Ghana
​​Joshua "Blackstar" Boateng, professional boxer 3-0 (1KO)​

This interview made it obvious to me why there are so many films about boxing...such an exciting sport! (at any level...) Joshua was describing some of his first fights as an amateur in Naples (before he moved to London and turned pro). One had a crazy back story where he was fighting a guy who had just come out of prison having killed one of his best friends brother (who was also a boxer) 20 years before. (It gets pretty emotional when the friend turns up on his doorstep the morning of the fight with his dead brothers' boots for Joshua to wear.) Many more exciting elements to the story too... a Ghanan mum who doesn't want him to fight, injuries, a Neapolitan fish market, finding God, classic Italian corruption and a bit of racism mixed in.

And to think this all came about because the F45 Battersea class was booked out so I went to the boxing gym next door instead :)
​
Best,
Delia
​
​Listen to Growing Up with Delia Burgess on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts (also now (gradually getting up) on YouTube!! Yay)

Previous editions here.​

Forwarded this and want to subscribe? Click here.​