‘We conclude’ or ‘I believe’? Rationality declined decades ago
The use of rationality related words has been on the rise since 1850, but started an accelerating decline around 1980. This is concluded by research published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week. The discovery implies that a loss of interest in facts and rational arguments already started decades before the rise of social media.
Scientists from Wageningen University and Research (WUR) and Indiana University discovered that the increasing irrelevance of factual truth in public discourse is part of a groundswell trend that started decades ago. While the current ‘post-truth era’ has taken many by surprise, the study shows that over the past forty years public interest has undergone an accelerating shift from the collective to the individual, and from rationality towards emotion.
From ratio to sentiment
Analysing language from millions of books the researchers found that words associated to reasoning such as ‘determine’ and ‘conclusion’ rose systematically since 1850, while words related to human experience such as ‘feel’ and ‘believe’ declined. This pattern reversed over the past 40 years paralleled by a shift from a collectivistic to an individualistic focus as reflected by the ratio of singular to plural pronouns such as ‘I’/‘we’.
“Interpreting this synchronous sea-change in book language remains challenging.” says co-author Johan Bollen of Indiana University. “However, as we show, the nature of this reversal occurs in fiction as well as non-fiction. Moreover, we observe the same pattern of change between sentiment and rationality flag words in New York Times articles, suggesting that it is not an artefact of the book corpora we analysed.”
Causes
“Inferring the drivers of long-term patterns seen from 1850 until 1980 necessarily remains speculative.” Says lead author Marten Scheffer of WUR. “One possibility when it comes to the trends from 1850 to 1980 is that the rapid developments in science and technology and their socio-economic benefits drove a rise in status of the scientific approach, which gradually permeated culture, society, and its institutions ranging from the education to politics. As argued early on by Max Weber, this may have led to a process of ‘disenchantment’ as the role of spiritualism dwindled in modernized, bureaucratic, and secularized societies.”
What precisely caused the observed reversal of the long-term trend around 1980 remains perhaps even more difficult to pinpoint. However, according to the authors there could be a connection to tensions arising from changes in economic policies since the early 1980s, which may have been defended on rational arguments but the benefits of which were not equally distributed.
Social media
The authors did find that the shift from rationality to sentiment in book language accelerated around 2007 with the rise of social media, when across languages the frequency of fact-related words dropped while emotion-laden language surged, a trend paralleled by a shift from collectivistic to individualistic language.
Co-author Ingrid van de Leemput from WUR: “Whatever the drivers, our results suggest that the post-truth phenomenon is linked to a historical seesaw in the balance between our two fundamental modes of thinking: reasoning versus intuition. If true, it may well be impossible to reverse the sea-change we signal. Instead, societies may need to find a new balance, explicitly recognizing the importance of intuition and emotion, while at the same time making best use of the much needed power of rationality and science to deal with topics in their full complexity.”
Original Article: ‘We conclude’ or ‘I believe’? Rationality declined decades ago
More from: Wageningen University and Research | Indiana University
The Latest Updates from Bing News & Google News
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Decline of rationality
- Republican Party can still do what’s rational and right; here’s the proof
There’s no record of Edmund Burke — the great Irish-born British statesman and father of modern conservatism — actually saying what is often attributed to him: “The only thing necessary for the ...
- The Utopia of Religious Democracy
From a religious perspective, the 2024 election is one of the most pragmatic, capitalistic, "secular" democratic events.
- Generative AI is generating astronomical profits by trampling authors and publishers
Big tech wants a pass on the indiscriminate appropriations they have already undertaken and continue to press for their own gains. There isn’t a single, rational reason to accommodate them.
- Opinion: Gun violence has numbed us. We can change that at the polls.
In April alone, there have been 27 separate instances of mass shootings in the United States, with 20 deaths and more than 130 injuries, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
- Investors in Bonia Corporation Berhad (KLSE:BONIA) have seen strong returns of 128% over the past three years
By buying an index fund, investors can approximate the average market return. But if you pick the right individual stocks, you could make more than that. Just take a look at Bonia Corporation Berhad ( ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Decline of rationality
[google_news title=”” keyword=”decline of rationality” num_posts=”5″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]
Go deeper with Bing News on:
Post-truth era
- Jack Wagner Teases 'Comedic Quest for Truth' in 'When Calls the Heart'
J ack Wagner’s immersion into the quaint, technology-free setting of "When Calls the Heart" transports him to a simpler, early 20th-century Canadian town meticulously portrayed on the Hallmark Channel ...
- Forest row shows refs' battle to adapt to demands of VAR era
As Nottingham Forest rage and Stuart Attwell is selected for Euro 2024, is refereeing really in crisis, and what's been done about it?
- Victoria Beckham reveals the sad truth about her ‘miserable cow’ era
Victoria Beckham addressed her ‘miserable cow’ reputation (Picture: Marc Piasecki/GC Images) Victoria Beckham has addressed her reputation as a ‘miserable cow’ as she revealed that sad truth about how ...
- Truth Cult Announce Breakup, Final Shows
Truth Cult are calling it quits. Today, the Baltimore post-hardcore band announced that their European tour has been canceled, and they’re playing two final shows as Truth Cult next month.
- Premier League entering Trumpian post-truth era – led by Nottingham Forest’s social media tirades
During Brian Clough’s famous head-to-head with John Motson in 1979, the great sage of Nottingham Forest offered a passionate defence of officials and the difficulties they faced. “The standard you ...
Go deeper with Google Headlines on:
Post-truth era
[google_news title=”” keyword=”post-truth era” num_posts=”5″ blurb_length=”0″ show_thumb=”left”]