When U.S. Senator Arthur Vandenberg famously told President Harry Truman that he’d have to “scare the hell out of the American people” to secure support for the coming Cold War, Vandenburg was tapping into a tried-and-true tradition of strategically cultivating fear to influence attitudes and change behavior. While this tactic has a long history of use, strikingly little has been written on precisely how, why, and when it actually works. In this talk, Greenhill offers just such an explanation. Drawing upon findings from her next book, Greenhill describes how and why cognitive and psychological biases can be triggered and strategically manipulated as means to political and military ends. Greenhill further explains why actors engaged in this particular kind of cognitive hacking frequently eschew fact-based arguments in favor of “truthier” alternatives, such as rumors, conspiracy theories, propaganda, fiction and so-called fake news, sources she collectively refers to as “extra-factual information” (EFI). She identifies the conditions under which policymakers and the public tend to find EFI-infused threat narratives persuasive, and shows that while information content and delivery platforms have changed, the underlying mechanisms that make this tool such an effective instrument of political influence, and EFI, such a useful handmaiden to it, have not.
Professor Kelly M. Greenhill holds joint appointments at Tufts University and MIT, where she also serves as Director of the MIT-Seminar XXI Program. Greenhill's research focuses the politics of information; refugees and forced migration; foreign and defence policy; and coercion and the use of military force. She is author of Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy, winner of the International Studies Association’s Best Book of the Year Award; and co-author and co-editor of Sex, Drugs and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict; The Use of Force: Military Power and International Politics (8th ed.); and Coercion: The Power to Hurt in International Politics. Greenhill’s research has also appeared in academic and policy journals, international media outlets, and briefs prepared for argument before the U.S. Supreme Court. For the academic years 2024-27, Greenhill and Fiona Adamson (SOAS) have been awarded a Gerda Henkel Foundation Research Fellowship, for their ongoing work on the geopolitics of forced migration. Outside of academia, Greenhill has served as a consultant to the United Nations and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, NATO, the World Bank, and the Ford Foundation; as an analyst for the US Department of Defense; and as an economic policy intern for the then Senator John F. Kerry. She holds a Ph.D. and an S.M. from MIT, a C.S.S. from Harvard University, and a B.A. from UC Berkeley.
Professor Kelly M. Greenhill holds joint appointments at Tufts University and MIT, where she also serves as Director of the MIT-Seminar XXI Program. Greenhill's research focuses the politics of information; refugees and forced migration; foreign and defence policy; and coercion and the use of military force. She is author of Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy, winner of the International Studies Association’s Best Book of the Year Award; and co-author and co-editor of Sex, Drugs and Body Counts: The Politics of Numbers in Global Crime and Conflict; The Use of Force: Military Power and International Politics (8th ed.); and Coercion: The Power to Hurt in International Politics. Greenhill’s research has also appeared in academic and policy journals, international media outlets, and briefs prepared for argument before the U.S. Supreme Court. For the academic years 2024-27, Greenhill and Fiona Adamson (SOAS) have been awarded a Gerda Henkel Foundation Research Fellowship, for their ongoing work on the geopolitics of forced migration. Outside of academia, Greenhill has served as a consultant to the United Nations and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, NATO, the World Bank, and the Ford Foundation; as an analyst for the US Department of Defense; and as an economic policy intern for the then Senator John F. Kerry. She holds a Ph.D. and an S.M. from MIT, a C.S.S. from Harvard University, and a B.A. from UC Berkeley.