Hey what’s up Thinkers! Kathy Gibbens here…
Let’s start off with a quick review from part 11 of the manipulation mini-series from earlier in this season where we talked about Peer Pressure. Do you want to pause for just a minute and see if you can define Peer Pressure? Now, you may be wondering why I included peer pressure in a manipulation series. Well, it’s easy. It’s because peer pressure IS a form of manipulation! Think about it! Peer pressure is when your peers try to pressure you into doing, thinking or believing something, whether it’s good for you or not. That’s a form of manipulation! Now, we need to acknowledge that not all peer pressure is bad. And that’s exactly what makes some of the manipulation tactics so tricky…they’re not always bad and harmful. Sometimes they’re good & even helpful. As you’ve heard me say over & over again, it’s all about the motivation behind the tactic.
So, the question to ask yourself when you’re facing peer pressure is this: “Is this actually a good idea or am I being manipulated to do something I don’t really want to do?”
If you want to hear more about this fallacy, check out Episode 56.
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Alright, today’s new fallacy is the Oversimplified Cause Fallacy. The Oversimplified Cause Fallacy happens when someone tries to attribute a complex event or outcome to a single, oversimplified cause. If there are 10 things that contributed to a certain outcome, they’ll just focus on 1 of them and say that one thing is the whole reason we got the outcome we did.
There’s another fallacy that I was going to do a separate episode on, but it’s so similar to this one that I’m just going to mention it in this episode b/c these two fallacies are almost like twin brothers, they’re so similar. The Exaggerated Cause Fallacy happens when someone overstates or over exaggerates the cause of a certain outcome to make it seem like it had a bigger impact than it actually may have had. Ok, can you see how similar these two fallacies are? Both involve oversimplifying the causes of an outcome so I’m just going to keep it simple and leave it at that.
Alright, so here’s an example. Your Mom says that every time your best friend, Faith, comes over to play, your room gets ridiculously messy. So, in order to keep your room from getting messy, Faith is never allowed to come over to play. Ok, so maybe one of the causes of a messy room is Faith coming over to play, but how about the times it’s messy b/c you pulled all your Legos out? How about the fact that you don’t have a shelf for all your books? How about when you play with your siblings in your room? The problem is a messy room, but in order to fix the problem, you have to look at ALL the reasons it happens, not just pick one to focus on. B/c guess what? If you only eliminate one of many causes, you’ll still have the problem!
Another example of the Oversimplified Cause fallacy would be if someone said, “If we outlaw smoking, we can end lung cancer for good!” Ok, so we know that one of the causes of lung cancer is smoking, but is that the only cause? No, it’s not. There are people who get diagnosed with lung cancer who have never smoked a cigarette in their life. So, eliminating one of the causes of lung cancer isn’t a guarantee to eliminate the problem. Now, in this case, if the campaign were to eliminate smoking to REDUCE the number of lung cancer diagnoses each year, that’s a different story. It can help reduce numbers, but not end lung cancer completely.
OR how about someone claiming that if nobody owned guns, we could eliminate crime. Is that really true? Or are there many other factors that affect crime rates?
Now, sometimes people will commit the Oversimplified Cause fallacy out of ignorance - maybe they really only know of 1 cause for a problem. And sometimes, people can commit this fallacy in an effort to be brief & to the point, but oftentimes they’re ignoring other causes b/c focusing on just one cause will help their agenda, will get support for their cause or will make people want to buy whatever it is they’re selling. But it’s not actually helping people b/c it’s only focusing on ONE of the many causes of a particular outcome. Simplifying a complex issue to only one causative factor can create a very misleading explanation of the issue that keeps people from getting the help they need.
Another example of this fallacy would be if I said, “Our genetics are the biggest cause of obesity.” Ok, that may be one contributing factor, but is that the sole cause or even the biggest cause? How about eating habits? Stress levels? Amount of exercise & regular movement? Other environmental factors? Obesity can be a complex issue & to say it’s only genetics ignores all the other contributing factors & could have the effect of making people not even try to make positive changes b/c they don’t realize there are other things that can affect their ability to lose weight.
Question to ask yourself: “Is it really true that that’s the only thing causing this problem?” *repeat*
Remember: When you learn HOW to think, you will no longer fall prey to those who are trying to tell you what THEY want you to think and it all starts with asking one simple question: “Is that really true?”
