Brian G. Southwell is an expert on communication and human behavior. We met because he was presenting on misinformation to a social science affinity group I attend. Brian’s advice for fighting misinformation isn’t intuitive. Facts are facts are facts, you would think. But in the age of alternative facts, facts aren’t facts for everybody. Brian conveyed that we need to start considering the context around the facts—notably, the relationship between information givers and receivers— if we want people to listen. “People listen to people who they trust, who respect them, and who they feel connected to,” Brian relayed.

The key to fighting misinformation is connection.

Fighting Misinformation with Connection

In a study Brian helped conduct, researchers interviewed travelers arriving back to the U.S. from countries that had Ebola outbreaks. “Care ambassadors” debriefed the travelers, advising them to report to authorities if they had any symptoms. People were more likely to plan to comply if they trusted their care ambassador. Trust, in the study, looked like seeing the ambassador as credible, but also as someone who cares about you as a person.

When I talked to Brian, I got the sense that trustworthiness wasn’t just an intellectual exercise for him, but a way of life. His resume is impressive. He wrote the book on misinformation. He got his Ph.D. in Communication from UPenn, directs a program at a nonprofit research institute, RIT International, and teaches at Duke. And yet, he is humble, warm, patient, and curious, often answering my questions by asking my thoughts on those very same questions. I pegged him as the type of person that strangers spill their guts to. When he interviewed me for his radio show, The Measure of Everyday Life, I remarked that his cool hosting style made me feel so comfortable.  He was surprised, he confessed, since he was wrangling his kids in the background. If that was Brian at wrangling his kids, I wondered how deep his air of Zen could go.

Brian embodied a perfect misinformation firefighter. And if we want to fight misinformation, we can learn from him. He listened more than he talked. He reflected back to me the meaning he derived from what I was saying. When I used the wrong name for his radio show, in his response, he repeated the right name, without directly confronting my error. The research on misinformation seemed to settle into his bones. In a nutshell, it’s about connecting first and arguing later.

For more on friendship, order my book (debuts September 6th, 2022): Platonic: How the Science of Attachment Can Help You Make- and Keep -Friends.

Note: This article is cross-posted on my Psychology Today blog.