Human Mind: Perceptions, misperceptions, prejudices, stereo-types

Gurumurthy Kalyanaram - Unfortunately, once the human mind forms an opinion/perception it is difficult to dislodge that. That's how myths, prejudices and stereo-types are born and survive.

One of the persistent misinformation is that President Barack Obama is of Islamic faith. Of course, this is not true at all. But it has been impossible to complete disabuse the individuals and the society of this falsehood.

Brendan Nyhan, Jason Reifler, and their coauthors show in a recent study (The Effects of Semantics and Social Desirability in Correcting the Obama Muslim Myth) that mis-perceptions are stubborn and persistent.