How to Coach Yourself and Others Beware of Manipulation | Page 147

Biased Questions
Imagine someone stops you on the street and asks you to participate in a survey about tax cuts. You
agree, and she asks you the following questions:
•Do you support tax cuts that benefit only the wealthy and neglect the needs of those with low
incomes?
•Do you think the government should be allowed to make tax cuts that exclude the poor and
uneducated?
No matter how you feel about tax cuts, chances are you can't answer anything but no to these
questions. Why? Because if you say yes, it sounds like you are not empathetic to the needs of those
who are helpless. These questions are phrased unfairly, making it difficult for you to give a fair answer.
In other words, inherent in the questions is a certain attitude toward tax cuts—in this case, a negative
one—that prejudices the questions. In short, the questions aren't fair—they're biased.
Notice how these particular questions use dysphemisms to bias the questions and pressure you to
answer them a certain way. In this example, tax cuts become equivalent to negative terms such as
neglect and exclude.
Here is how euphemisms might be used to bias the questions toward the opposing point of view:
•Do you support tax cuts that will benefit all socioeconomic levels of society and help improve the
economy?
•Do you think the government should be allowed to make tax cuts that give people's hard-earned
money back to them?
This time, notice how saying yes is much easier than saying no. If you say no to the first question, it
sounds like you are indifferent to what happens to you and your society. If you say no to the second
question, it sounds like you are without compassion and don't believe that people deserve to keep what
they earn.
Here are the questions revised once again so that you can answer yes or no fairly:
•Do you support tax cuts?
•Do you think the government should be allowed to decide when to make tax cuts?
Professional surveys will be careful to ask fair questions, but when political organizations, advertisers,
and other groups or individuals have an agenda, they may use biased questions to elicit specific results.
Similarly, anyone who wants to influence you may use biased questions to get you to respond in a
certain way. That's why it's important for you to recognize when a question is fair and when it's biased.

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