It’s been a year of polarizing decisions. The US election, Brexit: a world of binary choices where everyone who disagrees is a hater, a loser, a deplorable, a fascist or a deplorable loser fascist hater. Worldwide, people – whether that’s “coastal metropolitan elite citizens” or “honest hardworking rural folk” – have retreated into their bubble, an echo chamber where they are only confronted with news which conforms with their existing worldview.

The internet, initially envisioned as a wonderful tool which would bring us all closer together, has unfortunately been instrumental in this. From Senator Daniel Moynihan saying everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts, we’ve come to a world where wildly divergent facts are available, as succinctly shown by the Wall Street Journal’s “Blue Feed, Red Feed,” graphic.



While liberals know their facts come from university professors, scientific evidence and peer-reviewed papers, right-wing “facts” are all from fake news sites operated by spotty Macedonian teenagers for LOLs, right?

Unfortunately, it seems that both sides are equally guilty of confirmation bias.

Psychologists at the Universities of Winnipeg and Chicago have done some research into the phenomenon of putting one’s fingers into ears and going “LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU,” or as they call it, motivated ignorance.

In their experiment, they offered participants, who opposed letting gay couples marry, a chance to win $10. There was a catch, though. To qualify for the prize, they had to read eight arguments for legalizing same-sex marriage. As an alternative, they could read eight anti-same-sex marriage statements – but any potential prize money would be reduced to $7.

“Greed and curiosity were teamed up against motivated ignorance,” they explained in the LA Times – and it was a clear victory for staying in political comfort zones. Most conservatives, 61%, chose to stay in their bubble and forgo the extra cash. When they gave liberals the same dilemma, 64% preferred to read the arguments they already knew they agreed with.

As an optimist, this isn’t just a triumph over greed and curiosity, it shows both sides have more in common than they thought!

More seriously, it shows over a third of people of each political persuasion are open to hearing arguments from the other political side, so let’s be glad about that. Those 39% of conservatives and 36% of liberals could form a glorious coalition of reasonable, open-minded people who are prepared to enter into debates of more than 140 characters on what’s best for society. These “reasonables” may be our last, best hope. Or, they could just be people who really wanted that extra $3.

As for the liberals who are well and truly stuck in the quinoa-eating echo chamber – guys, it is definitely comfy in here but it’s not enough. As Jeremy Frimer, Linda Skitka and Matt Motyl, the academics behind the experiment add, it’s worth listening to opposing political views if only to sharpen your own critical thinking.

In the next few years we’re all going to need to do a lot of bridge-building, listening and understanding: sneering might be fun, but it hasn’t helped win the argument on Brexit or Trump.

This brings me on to the main problem with the experiment. The difference between choosing to read a heartwarming tale of things you truly believe in finally happening and the bad guys’ manifesto is more than the chance to win an additional $3. And mending fences in a post-truth age is going to take more than just creating web redirects for FoxNews.com and Slate (though maybe some hacker with a sense of fun could do it for a treat.)

What will actually make a difference is people talking to each other. “People we surveyed said they anticipated getting angry if they were to listen to the other side, and suspected that it might damage their relationship with the person spouting off,” the academics said. Well, it might, but staying silent means nothing will change.

Go on, be brave, talk to your fellow humans. If it pays off, you’ll be rewarded with much more than just $10.