Moral attitudes are especially difficult to change because the attached
emotions may largely define who we are. Certain beliefs are so important to us
that they become part of how we prove our identity.
Take, for example, a story about Dr. Ignaz Semmelwies. A bulletin board
exhibit, entitled "The History of Hand Washing," currently on display at
Overlook Hospital, illustrates how difficult it can be to change strongly-held
beliefs.
Dr. Semmelwies was the Chief Resident in surgery at the Vienna General
Hospital in 1847. At the time, the theory of diseases was highly influenced by
ideas of an imbalance of the basic "four humours" in the body, a theory known as
dyscrasia for which the main treatment was blood lettings. There was also
conventional wisdom that diseases were spread in the form of "bad air,"
sometimes called "unfavorable atmospheric-cosmic-territorial influences."
At the Vienna General Hospital, there were two OBGYN clinics. Clinic #1
was a teaching service for medical students. Clinic #2 was exclusively for the
instruction of midwives. At the time, the staff were quite puzzled about a
consistent difference in the mortality rates of the two clinics.
A good friend of Dr. Semmelwies died after accidentally being poked with a
student's scalpel while performing a post mortem exam. The friend's own autopsy
showed a pathology similar to that of women in Clinic #1 who were dying of
puerperal fever (infection of a woman's placenta following delivery or abortion,
sometimes causing death by the infection passing into the bloodstream). Dr.
Semmelwies proposed that there could be a connection between cadaver
contamination and the puerperal fever. He concluded that he and the medical
students carried "cadaverous particles" on their hands from the autopsy room to
the patients in OBGYN Clinic #1, that caused puerperal fever and the higher
incidence of patient deaths than in Clinic #2. He believed this explained why
the student midwives in Clinic #2 (who were not engaged in autopsies and had no
contact with the corpses) saw almost no mortality.
Dr. Semmelwies instituted a policy of using a solution of calcium
hypochlorite for washing hands between autopsy work and the examination of
patients in Clinic #1. Mortality rates dropped dramatically in Clinic #1.
Regardless of these facts, many doctors in Vienna were offended at the
suggestion that they should wash their hands. They felt that their social
status as gentlemen was inconsistent with the idea that their hands could be
unclean. As a result, Dr. Semmelwies' ideas were rejected by the medical
community. Perfectly reasonable hand-washing proposals were ridiculed and
rejected by Dr. Semmelwies' contemporaries in the 1840's. The ideas of Dr.
Semmelwies were in conflict with established medical opinions, regardless of
being consistent with scientific facts.
Only years after his death, did Dr. Semmelwies' handwashing requirement
earn widespread acceptance, when Louis Pasteur developed the germ theory of
disease. Pasteur was able to develop the germ theory through experiments
demonstrating that organisms such as bacteria were responsible for souring wine,
beer and even milk. Today, the process he invented for removing bacteria by
boiling and then cooling a liquid (pasteurization) is not in dispute, but it
took decades for acceptance. Today, Dr. Semmelwies is recognized in medical
circles as a pioneer of antiseptic policy.
According to the Overlook Hospital exhibit, "Semmelwies Reflex" is a term
applied today to a certain type of human behavior characterized by reflex-like
rejection of new knowledge because it contradicts entrenched norms, beliefs or
paradigms.
When the subjects of climate change or evolution come up in conversation
today, do some of us tend to deny widely accepted scientific findings because
they challenge our identity ---- our sense of self? Do we think there is
not solid evidence that the average temperature on earth has been getting warmer
over the past few decades? Do we think humans and other living things have
existed in their present form since the beginning of time? To believe either of
these propositions requires some rejection of Biblical and/or political
teaching, which in turn would cause some believers to fear they were changing
their belief system. Furthermore, would it alienate them from group
values, like their church denomination or their political party?
In 2012, The New York Times published a story by Maggie Koerth-Baker, in
which she confirmed that factual and scientific evidence is often ineffective in
changing beliefs, because one's sense of "identity" may "trump" the facts. The
emotions attached to these preferences largely define who we are.
Certain beliefs are so important for a society or group that they become part
of how we prove our identity.
In groups, says Ms. Koerth-Baker, it is as though we circle around certain
ideas. It's how we show we are a member of the group. We tend to side with
people who share our identity ---- even when the facts disagree, and calling
someone a "flip-flopper" is a way of calling them morally suspect, as if those
who change their minds are in some way being unfaithful to their group.
But people change their minds all the time, Ms Koerth-Baker points out.
When the stakes are high, achieving that change of mind is hard to do. That's
why, she says, marshaling data and making rational arguments often will not
work.
Whether you are changing your own mind or someone else's, the key is
emotional, persuasive storytelling. Stories are more powerful than data
because, she says, they allow individuals to identify emotionally with
ideas and people they might otherwise see as "outsiders."
Ms. Koerth-Baker reports that researchers have speculated, for example,
that children who grow up seeing friendly gay people on TV will be more likely
to support gay marriage as adults, regardless of other political affiliations
and religious beliefs.
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These thoughts are brought to you by CPC's Adult Spiritual Development
Team, hoping to encourage some personal growth this year at CPC.
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