News Literacy & Social Emotional Learning

I read this article, News Literacy Must Include Social Emotional Learning by Jennifer LaGarde and Darren Hudgins in the School Library Journal that turned on a lightbulb for me in relation to information literacy. 

The article discusses the importance of talking about social-emotional learning (SEL) in the context of news literacy. Both SEL and information literacy are important topics, but when you couple them together it seems to help drive home the important fact that many "news" articles aren't actually correct or informative. What most people usually react to isn't the information in the article or post - what they tend to react to is the way the article makes them feel. Diving into the reasons so many people reflexively click and share inaccurate information is an important component to becoming information literate. Understanding that words can evoke emotions can help people, old and young, master information literacy.

The Backfire Bias

Having taken psychology courses in undergrad, I'm aware of biases and how we all fall prey to them. In an on-demand training I took called Overcoming Bias there was a section devoted to the backfire bias. The backfire bias is when people who already hold a strong belief, double down in their belief even when shown evidence to the contrary. Because I am very passionate about information literacy, I was interested in hearing ways to help overcome this bias. Dr. Michael Shermer, author and narrator of the training, gave six steps that may help when talking to people about difficult subjects. 

1. Keep emotions out of it. 
2. Discuss - don't attack. 
3. Listen carefully so that you can tell their belief back to them. 
4. Show respect. 
5. Acknowledge that you understand why someone might believe that. 
6. Try to show that changing facts does not mean changing their entire view of something else.