We spend a lot of energy in public debates debating whether facts are accurate. We fact-check politicians and monitor social media to detect misinformation. In our workplaces, we prioritise data driven decision making. This is a vital focus, as the ability to distinguish between fact and fiction is essential for a society that functions.
By focusing on accuracy in fact, we may overlook another important distinction: that between a fact or an opinion.
It is easy to verify a statement of truth: either it is true or it is not. A claim’s objectiveness – whether it is a verifiable, objective statement or an expression of subjective belief – can be more difficult to verify. It is much more complicated. Our minds encode and process opinions differently than facts.
What are the stakes in objectivity?
Objectivity is more than a linguistic distinction; it’s the basis of important legal and policy debates. In defamation suits against US journalists like Tucker Carlson or Sidney Powell the legal defences hinged on whether certain statements could be “reasonably interpreted as fact” or if they were simply “opinions”. Similarly, social networking platforms have been struggling with whether to fact check posts that are labelled as “opinions”, a policy which has recently compelled to complicate ‘s efforts to combat climate denialism.
It is important to make this distinction because it helps us frame our disagreements. If a claim is clearly a statement of opinion, such as “the current administration fails the working class”, one can agree or disagree. However, we recognize that disagreement is possible and neither side has a right to be right.
factual statements, such as “The official US rate of poverty was 10.6% in 2020”, leave little room for discussion. This requires a source and a correct answer.
In turn, this can lead to a lack of receptivity towards opposing viewpoints. This fuels conflict between individuals and leads to political polarisation.
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There has been little research done on the cognitive consequences of claim objectivity, despite these high stakes. In a series of 13 preregistered studies involving 7,510 participants conducted by UCLA Anderson’s Stephen Spiller, and published in Journal of Consumer Research we examined how claim objectivity affected a crucial and specific type of memory, source memory.
Our findings suggest that human minds do not treat opinions and facts equally. Objective facts have a distinct advantage when it comes to remembering what someone said.
Let’s use an example to illustrate. One doctor may make the factual statement “the measles vaccination prevented an estimated 56,000,000 deaths between 2000 and 2020.” Another doctor could say something similar but instead give data, “I believe that vaccination is an easy method to prevent unnecessary suffering.”
We tested this dynamic in our research by using a fictitious illness to control for prior information. We found that people were significantly more likely than facts to remember where an opinion came from.
This is not simply because opinions are “catchier”, or easier to recall in general. In all 13 experiments, we measured “recognition memories”. This is the ability to recall that a statement has been made. There was no difference between the recognition memory of facts and opinions. Participants remembered both factual and opinion claims equally. They struggled, however, to trace the source of the factual claims.
Learn more: People we like can affect the connections that our memory makes
Source coding
Why does this disconnect happen? Source memory is an associative form of memory. Source memory relies on the ability of the brain to connect distinct elements of an experience, such as what was said and by whom, into a web of interconnected components during initial encoding.
The strength of the binding is dependent on what the claim says about its origin.
Facts and opinions both provide information about the origin, but to varying degrees. We learn about a candidate’s legislative knowledge if they say “The United States Agency for International Development was created by 1961’s Foreign Assistance Act”. If the same candidate states, “I think that closing USAID was a moral disaster for our nation and world”, we will learn a lot more about them. We can learn more about the candidate’s values, priorities and stance regarding America’s global role.
Our brains encode more links between sources, opinions and facts than between sources, facts. This is because opinions provide more information than facts about the speaker.
This is supported by studies in developmental psychology and neurology. Research found that when encoding opinion compared to fact, there was greater activation of the brain regions associated with Theory of Mind. This is the ability to represent thoughts and mental states in others.
We build a richer mental image of the speaker when we listen to their opinion. The additional social information helps to strengthen the associative connections formed during encoding.
Learn more: Jane Austen’s Theory of Mind: How literary fiction sharpens’mindreading” skills
What happens, however, when opinions don’t tell us anything about the source? This mechanism was tested by giving participants book reviews. The participants remembered sources of opinions much better than the facts when they believed that the reviewers were the source. When we told participants that the sources were simply “re-tellers”, reading randomly selected reviews they lost the memory advantage of the sources for opinions and performed on par with the facts.
We also tested the source memory of facts that revealed something about a person, like personal statements such as “I was raised in Virginia”. Source memory was equally accurate in these situations as it was when opinions were given, such as “chocolate tastes better than vanilla”. This was more accurate than general facts such as “Stockholm, the capital of Sweden”, or even opinions.
The Visibility Paradox
These findings pose a significant challenge to experts and leaders. To maintain credibility, authorities are advised to “stick with the facts”, but our findings show that if they only present the facts, they risk losing their authority as sources of information.
In an era of misinformation, polarisation and rampant misinformation, it is important to remember who said what in order to avoid conflict and ensure accuracy.
Experts often aim to anchor facts in real life. According to our research, sharing opinions helps people accurately attribute information to reliable sources. Experts can help our brains to better connect information with its source by sharing their opinions about data, rather than the actual data. Opinions are just as important in the fight against misinformation. They don’t go ignored.
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This research was conducted in part thanks to the generous support of the UCLA Anderson Morrison Center for Marketing and Data Analytics.
