As true as "turnips is"...

“It was as true," said Mr. Barkis, " as turnips is. It was as true," said Mr. Barkis, nodding his nightcap, which was his only means of emphasis, " as taxes is.” 
― Charles Dickens

You may or may not be familiar with the term PSYOP. It has been defined by Lt. Col. Brad Carr, as "the ability to operate in an approved area to influence the behaviors and attitudes of foreign target audiences, in line with national objectives."

When you speak of non-warfare elements of defense you are likely referring to messaging and tactics supportive of interests of the United States. I will stop right here because this isn't intended to be political --only informative.

Data is power. You can manipulate people and their behaviors based on what triggers them or to use industry language--their psychometric properties. You may have stumbled across these assessments at the hands of Cambridge Analytica's nefarious but amusing little quizzes or innocently through a hiring process.

Risk be damned, I now know what kind of vegetable I am.

These types of questions are designed to explore cognitive abilities, personality traits, and behavioral tendencies. In the wrong hands, they can instill targeted and scripted fear mongering and hostility unrelenting until you are driven to a particular candidate.

The documentary below mentions a disturbing statistic--by identifying and targeting potential voters identified as "persuadables" about 70,000 voters from 3 states determined our last presidential election.

​I don't care if your candidate won or not--this is not how a democracy works. Mind meld a populace through profound misinformation and baiting? And we allow it to happen. We have polarized around measures of "fear" and "anger" designed to motivate hate and separateness.

Watch the trailer and if you have Netflix--watch the movie. 

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But here is where measuring objective reasoning and cognition are simultaneously manipulative and also an integral component of understanding why we do what we do.

As an analyst, I constantly review data collection strategies, collected data, and the output from survey instruments. Most industries, with the exception of continuing medical education (CME), are interested in influences of behavior. Shared decision making has guided patients to perhaps ask questions but we have done nothing to evaluate the quality of the responses they may or may not be provided.

Not just measuring how someone answers a multiple choice question and deciding you have influenced their practice of medicine but what drives their decision making?

How likely are they to change behavior based on results from a new randomized controlled trial? How do they evaluate objective findings? Are they concerned about industry funding? Are they influenced by their peers? How do they seek answers to a clinical questions? What publications do they follow? How data literate are they? Do they consider costs at the point of care? Do they use probabilities to evaluate risk/benefits?

The list goes on and on. If you aren't using some form of decision analysis or stepping outside of summary statistics--what do you know for certain?

Are we okay thinking that just because you present an audience with information that it will be distilled and operationalized?

Don't be a turnip...