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