Advocacy doesn't work if you tell someone they're wrong
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2010-10-31
Generally it isn't a good idea to offend someone you're
trying to convince. This is sounding almost too obvious, but
offending someone we are trying to get to free software is a
tactic we often use unconsciously. Instead of getting your
point across it will likely lead the other to strengthen or
adopt a contrary believe. There's much we can learn from
social psychology in advocating free software.
I recently joined the fellowship of the FSFE and decided to
read the wiki pages on advocacy. The part about how you
should characterize a company like Microsoft [1]
immediately grabbed my attention. Instead of
characterizing them as evil it states you should try
to talk about non-free software companies in general as
bad examples of how they treat their customers, forcing
upgrades or taking away their data in unknown formats".
I would like to take this careful approach even further and
say that it's best not to mention them at all, or only
sparsely. You might think I'm insane, but bear with me,
as there is a lot of science on my side.
The FSFE's FAQ on advocacy reminds me of my friends master
thesis [2] in which she studied face threatening acts
in anti-obesity messages. Governments around the world
are trying to convince their citizens of a healthier
lifestyle. Here in the Netherlands they can be quite
fierce in their persuasion with TV commercials which makes
the intended audience (i.e. people with obesity, or
smokers) feel uncomfortable. There's been quite a lot of
research on the effect of these campaigns and it turns
out that most of them didn't work at all. Scientists have
studied which kind of messages have the best effect and
which don't work.
It appears that one kind of messages never work and that's
the messages that result in reactance. Reactance
[3] (in psychology) is an emotional reaction to pressure
or persuasion that results in strengthening or adoption of
a contrary belief. It is reactance which can cause a
Windows user to dig their heels in, even after trying to
convince them with your best arguments of why Windows
is bad [4].
When you tell a proprietary software user why proprietary
software harms their freedom, you are essentially telling
them they are doing something wrong. Psychologically they
interpret this: “He is telling me I'm wrong”, essentially
threatening their face [5] good about themselves and likes
to believe that what they are doing is right. To impede
that feeling is generally a very bad idea when you want
someone to lend an ear.
So instead of another round of bashing Microsoft, Apple,
Oracle, and so on, I think it's best we should advocate free
software on its own merit. There are a truckload of
arguments that speak in favor of free software, without even
mentioning proprietary software and I think it's best we use
those. I honestly believe negative campaigning (aka
mudslinging) is a bad idea and will most likely only
convince those who are already on our side.
Hyperlinks:
[1]:
http://wiki.fsfe.org/Advocacy_faq_en
[2]:
http://essay.utwente.nl/57632/1/scriptie_ten_Broeke.pdf
[3]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactance_%28psychology%29
[4]:
http://en.windows7sins.org/
[5]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politeness_theory
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Tags: english