Reactive devaluation: what it is and how it affects the mind and society

Quite frequently, phenomena known as cognitive biases (or cognitive prejudices) occur in the thinking of human beings, which cause an alteration in the process of that information that is captured through the senses, so that a distortion is produced, an interpretation that has no coherence or is illogical about the information available.

Reactive devaluation is one of those cognitive biases that usually occurs in the political sphere, and that refers to those cases in which which some sympathizers of a particular party or ideology have a tendency to devalue a proposal when they know that it has been devised by a political party opposed to yours, whereas if it were proposed by your party, a higher percentage of people would be given favour.

In this article we will see what this bias known as reactive devaluation consists of and what were the experiments that allowed discovering said bias, as well as we will see in which contexts it is usually more influential.

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What is reactive devaluation?

It was the researchers Lee Ross and Constance Stillinger who in 1988 proposed the bias known as "reactive devaluation" based on an experiment they had carried out.

Reactive devaluation is a cognitive bias that occurs more frequently in the political context, and is based on the fact that politicians, sympathizers with a party or members of a country that is in social, economic or armed conflict with another country, have a tendency, which could become unconscious, to devalue a proposal when they know that it has been devised by a political party opposed to theirs or by the country that is in conflict with your country.

In other words, reactive devaluation is a bias that refers to the tendency that some people may have to underestimate proposals that have been devised by a political party. with an ideology opposed to that of their party, especially when that party at that time is being viewed in a negative way at a social or political level for some reason that has caused controversy. This cognitive bias also can cause a considerable barrier within politics when negotiating on any relevant issue.

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Initial studies on reactive devaluation

Stillinger, Ross, and their collaborators published their initial reactive devaluation experiment in 1988, in which they had asked passers-by Americans who were about whether they would be in favor of a bilateral political program in which measures will be taken to reduce the manufacture of nuclear weapons. When the investigators said that said proposal came from the president of the United States Ronald Reagan 90% of those surveyed were in favor of it or maintained a position impartial.

When the people surveyed were told that the proposal to reduce the manufacture of nuclear weapons came from a group of American political analysts, without specify who they were or which political party they supported, there was also a high percentage of respondents who were in favor of taking this measure (approximately one 80%).

Instead, when the people surveyed were told that this measure to reduce the manufacture of nuclear weapons was coming from Mikhail Gorbachev, the one who was At that time, the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, only 44% were in favor or from a neutral position before this measure; while 56% thought that it would not be favorable for the United States and that it could benefit the Soviet Union, which revealed the reactive devaluation bias.

There were three studies, related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, to analyze the tendency of political antagonists to suspend peace proposals. In these experiments, the researchers exposed the experiment participants, all of them of Israeli origin, to a peace proposal that had actually been proposed by Israel; while other participants were exposed to the same peace proposal, but telling them that it had been proposed by Palestine.

The end result was that in cases where the participants had been told that the peace proposal had been devised by Israel, they were in favor in a notably higher percentage of cases, than in the group of subjects who had been told that said proposal had been devised Palestine.

These studies, which were carried out based on the conflict between Israel and Palestine, serve to demonstrate and further broaden the understanding at a theoretical level of this phenomenon related to the cognitive biases of human thought, reactive devaluation, thus demonstrating the barrier that this bias can create to the time of resolve conflicts in politics and in the real world around different parts of the world.

It is not uncommon to see similar cases, which show a reactive devaluation, in other countries, such as Spain, where it has been seen that on several occasions a political party that when it was in opposition had always been against a political measure proposed by the government that existed at that time and years later, when they are the ones who govern, they approve or even propose that same measure, despite the fact that years ago they were against another political party putting it into March.

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everyday examples

It is inevitable that all of us face various conflicts in various areas of our lives, so having the ability to resolve cordially those disputes is very important, although at the same time it is not easy to cultivate it, so for many people the reactive devaluation can suppose a obstacle when it comes to resolving conflicts, because if they are not able to listen and take into account objectively, they could find themselves in a harmful situation and costly circumstances for both parties.

Let's take a hypothetical example so that we better understand the cognitive bias of reactive devaluation. Let us imagine the case of some supporters of a political party whom we survey about their opinion of another party who wants to implement a measure to Allocate more money for public health, so that there are more health professionals who can attend to citizens (doctors, psychologists, nurses, etc.). Later, to other sympathizers of that same party, we would make the same proposal, but this time telling them that this measure has been devised by their own political party.

If it were the case that these supporters would be in a higher percentage in favor of taking this measure when they think it has been proposed by their party political, that in those cases in which they have been told that they were proposed by a party with a different ideology to theirs, we would be facing an example of devaluation reactive.

reactive devaluation can also be seen among some sports fans, such as football, with the classic debate between who is better, Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo. In most cases, Barcelona Football Club fans will say that Messi is the best footballer; while the majority of Real Madrid fans will consider Cristiano Ronaldo to be the best, and may even discredit the opposing team's footballer.

With this it can be said that not everyone thinks like this and that there are even many who, from a more impartial and perhaps even objective point of view, do not enter into that debate or position themselves in favor of either, alleging that both are very good footballers with a prolific career without detracting from any of the two.

The same thing happens in politics, where not everyone is unconditionally in favor of a party, having many people who analyze the proposals from a critical and objective point of view, being in favor of the proposals of parties contrary to the one they follow when they seem good to them for your country.

These are just a few hypothetical examples where the concept of reactive devaluation influences, which are probably familiar to us, and which can be used to explain in more detail a cognitive bias such as reactive devaluation that can occur quite frequently in various contexts and in different people.