What Bilingual Dogs Can Teach Us About Confirmation Bias

by Léo Fugazza

J’ai publié une traduction de ce texte sous le titre «Ce que les chiens bilingues peuvent nous apprendre sur le biais de confirmation». Je trouvais à propos vu le sujet de le traduire.

On Wednesday, December 12th 2012, the CBC radio show That is That posted an interview with Montréal city councilor Benoit LaDouce under the headline “Montreal bylaw requires dogs understand commands in both official languages”. The councilor  as it where, intended to put an end to the dangerous situations made possible by confused dogs, who only knew how to obey orders and commands in one of Canada’s official languages.

As it is often the case with the internet, comments started flooding social media sites. Angry anglophones and francophones argued that it was unthinkable that a city official would try and impose them the use of two languages like that. “What about the costs,” said some. Some francophones opposed the idea, saying that «on est au Québec, la langue oficielle c’est le français, même pour les chiens». Supportive anglophones and francophones praised Mr. LaDouce for finally tackling the issue of the language barrier with our canine friends. It doesn’t take much effort to train dogs bilingually, after all, and the price to pay is minimal compared to the awful accidents it avoids.

After much controversy, That is That posted a follow-up interview with councilor LaDouce, in which he explains that he heard advocates on both sides and would amend his motion. The headline read “Montreal councilor now wants dog parks to be language-free, dog owners must only use ‘tones and hand signals’ “.

Among other news sites, Yahoo News and the New York Mag‘s Daily Intelligencer reported on the story. [Yahoo News as since removed the article from their website.]

The only problem, of course, is that there never was a Montréal city councilor Benoit LaDouce, and that That is That is a CBC satirical radio show.

I had shared their initial interview on my Facebook page, as I often do with satire pieces, to see just how gullible some of my friends would be. I also posted simultaneously a post explaining the ploy, only visible to me at first, to be able to reveal the experiment after a day. I wanted to test the critical thinking ability of my audience. When you read such an extreme and ridiculous idea as forcing *dogs* to be bilinguals, surely something must switch in your brain to warn you that it is a joke, right?

Unfortunately, not at all. After merely half an hour of me posting the link, it had been shared over 10 times by people enraged by LaDouce’s idea, many of them linking his push forward and his newly found courage to the election of the PQ government of Pauline Marois. It was again an example of the language wars in Québec.

I quickly revealed that That is That was indeed satirical, and that the interview was a hoax. I chased the different shares to put the facts straight. My experiment wasn’t worth it. We have seen how unfounded ideas can grow into hatred on election night, over four months ago. To my last count, there is only two [EDIT: one] shared post left. All the other ones have either been taken down or made visible only to their posters.

But why did so many people, usually quite rational and critical, suddenly share a hoax as if it was true, without even a hint of disbelief? Some would say it is because I tend to share serious posts on politics, and that people therefore forget to fact-check me. They might assume that I already verified my sources, and suspend their critical thinking when it comes to what I write or share. It might be true, even though that is worrying in its own way. (Useful advice: always fact-check.)

I would rather attribute it to the cognitive process known as confirmation bias. As Wikipedia so eloquently describes it, confirmation bias “is a tendency of people to favor information that confirms their beliefs or hypotheses.” Confirmation bias is what makes it is so hard to convince people that they are wrong concerning politics, religion or philosophy. Even if your arguments are solid, and grounded in verifiable facts, people will often ignore them if they go against their previously held beliefs. You often get stuck in a dialogue de sourd, and the saddest part is that you are probably wrong as well and are putting your own spin on what you are trying to convince them of. Confirmation bias has a frighteningly strong grasp on our cognitive functions, to the point that rational thinking is often pushed aside in favour of reassuring lies. Indeed, confirmation bias is the entire premise of ‘medias’ such as Fox News in the US or Sun News in Canada. People desperately cling to them, at least subconsciously, because the truth is often too difficult to accept.

What does it have to do with language politics in Québec? In my opinion, everything. Bill 101, as it was first introduced, left an indelible mark on our common conscience. If some of its more extreme measures were struck down by the higher courts, its scare effect stuck. The mere words ‘Bill 101’ have in many circles the same effect as a student whispering Voldemort’s name in Hogwarts halls. No one can freely talk of “You-Know-What” or “It-That-Must-Not-Be-Named”, as it as become a loaded subject eliciting too strong an emotional response to be looked at critically, it seems.

Every year, alarming reports of the anglicisation of Québec are used as scarecrows for political purposes by some groups. Every year, completely different other reports paint a much brighter picture, often emphasizing bilingualism as the ‘source’ for claimed anglicisation, and are used as a standard by opposing political groups to rally. Spinner spin every survey, every poll, every study as if not doing so might mean death to them. In the weeks leading up to the election of the PQ government of Pauline Marois, some people started being afraid for their life, as if the election of a franco-centric nationalist party might mean that they would all be rounded up the day after the election and sent to concentration camps to either be assimilated or eliminated. In our day and age, where extreme proposals have become common currency for the Assemblée Nationale protagonists, every language policy is seen as a declaration of war by the other camp and as an absolutely perfect idea by the camp who put it forward, no matter how flawed it might objectively be. Subsequent attempts at what both sides perceive to be ‘improvements’  to the language policies in Québec are met with outcries and anger by the other side. Language politics have now completely lost touch with reality, and have become merely a vote fodder, almost a gimmick.

If my theory holds, it tells a worrying tale about the state of language politics in Québec. Our confirmation bias has become so strong on the issue that people on both sides do not even question the fact that a city councilor might want to legislate *dogs* languages. Worse maybe, it is almost credible that a city councilor might do so. He could win much votes that way, after all. We are no so excessively paranoid about languages that everything now seems plausible.

Language politics have become a war zone in Québec, ever waging, and we are all victims. Because we stereotype and exaggerate the other side, we have lost all sense of critical thinking.

So next time you read of a new language proposal and see the people around you react to it, ask yourself: have we all gone crazy?
If the answer is yes, bienvenue au Québec!