In the podcast DyeingFrancesca Albanese – United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory – speaks in a calm voice, without forcing. He doesn’t raise the tone, he doesn’t look for special effects: he brings numbers, stories, images that are striking for their crudeness. Children killed, hunger, entire communities deprived of their humanity.
Yet, every time he intervenes, the reactions polarize. There are those who consider it an indispensable voice and those who, on the contrary, reject it as inconvenient or “biased”. Psychology helps us understand why figures like his are so divisive. It’s not just a question of politics: it’s a phenomenon that concerns the way the mind reacts to news that is difficult to accept.
Ultimately, Albanese does what many experts or activists do: he brings data, contexts, facts. The difference is that those data – and the words that accompany them – undermine profound beliefs. And when that happens, the brain reacts by attacking the speaker, not what they say.
“Shoot the messenger”
One of the most interesting studies in this field was conducted at Harvard Business School by Leslie John, Hayley Blunden and Heidi Liu in 2019. In the research, participants received positive or negative news from various interlocutors.
Those who brought bad news were judged less likeable, less competent and less credible, even if they were not at fault. The authors speak of “automatic affective association”: the brain tends to transfer the unpleasant emotion of the news onto the person communicating it.
It’s a cognitive shortcut that helps us reduce discomfort, but leads us to distorted judgments.
In a related experiment conducted at Yale University (“Reward or Shoot the Messenger?”, 2022), researchers observed that those who bring good news are socially rewarded, while those who expose painful facts are isolated or punished. It is the modern version of the ancient proverb: “Do not shoot the messenger”.
In the case of Francesca Albanese, the mechanism is evident. She brings bad news – of deaths, hunger, dehumanization – and for this reason she is perceived as “guilty”. Its presence forces us to watch the horror, and the brain prefers to protect itself by attacking the source instead of processing reality.
In social psychology this process is intertwined with cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957): when new information contradicts what we believe, we choose the easy way out — defending our vision of the world by discrediting those who question it.
Moral shock
The American sociologist James Jasper, in his book The Art of Moral Protest (1997), introduced the concept of moral shock: an emotional moment in which a sudden event or phrase breaks moral neutrality and forces us to “feel” the problem.
During the interview with DyeingAlbanese cites figures that become mental images: “More than 20,000 children killed.” Numbers that leave no room for distance. According to Jasper, this type of message produces immediate emotional activation, capable of transforming the passive listener into a morally involved individual.
A study published in Frontiers in Psychology (Sabucedo et al., 2018) confirms that moral emotions — indignation, compassion, sense of injustice — are predictive factors of participation in social causes. Data alone is not enough: an affective stimulus is needed that makes personal what would otherwise remain abstract.
For this reason, in the language of Francesca Albanese, the words “genocide”, “occupation” or “imposed famine” are not rhetorical exaggerations: they are psychological devices that shake the collective conscience. Moral shock does not convince everyone, but forces everyone to react: some are indignant, others withdraw, but no one remains indifferent.
Dehumanization
Another powerful psychological key that emerged in the interview is that of dehumanization. Albanese denounces how, in political and media language, terms are used that reduce entire populations to non-human categories – “animals”, “terrorists”, “human shields”. Words that only seem harsh, but which actually affect our moral perception.
Psychologists Nick Haslam (University of Melbourne) and Adam Waytz (Northwestern University) have shown that dehumanization has two forms:
In both cases, the effect is the same: it decreases empathy. A study by Harris et al. (2011), conducted with magnetic resonance imaging, revealed that when we observe images of dehumanized people (such as homeless people or prisoners) the brain areas associated with compassion and emotional processing are deactivated.
This explains why, on a social level, languages that seem “only rhetorical” actually have enormous consequences. When we accept that someone is called “less human”, we implicitly accept that they will be treated worse. Words construct psychological realities: those who speak of “expendable lives” prepare the ground for inhuman policies.
Selective Framing: When the Media Amplifies “Hitting the Messenger”
During the interview, Albanese also gives a concrete example: he says that national newspapers often extrapolate a single sentence from his speeches and publish it on the front page, without reporting the context. The result is that the debate focuses on the isolated sentence, not on the complete analysis.
In communication psychology, this phenomenon is known as selective framing. As Robert Entman (1993) already explained, choosing “which part” of a speech to emphasize means orienting collective perception. Complex content becomes a provocative title, and the reader reacts to the label, not the topic.
Here the “shoot the messenger” mechanism comes into play: if the only thing we read is a harsh sentence, without context, it is even easier to project annoyance onto the author. Thus a vicious circle is fueled: extrapolation, indignation, attack on the person, further delegitimization of the content.
The active minority: the psychological strength of those who remain coherent
In 1976 the psychologist Serge Moscovici described the phenomenon of active minority: groups or individuals who, despite being in a clear minority, manage to influence the majority thanks to coherence, security and persistence.
Through a series of experiments — such as the one on the color of slides (Moscovici & Lage, 1976) — he discovered that a compact and coherent minority can change collective perception, even without formal power. The mechanism is cognitive: the consistency of the message generates dissonance and curiosity in the public, forcing them to reconsider their positions.
Francesca Albanese, in the current media context, perfectly embodies this figure. He doesn’t seek approval, he doesn’t soften his words, he doesn’t align himself. It is the consistency of her tone — sometimes perceived as obstinacy — that gives her symbolic credibility.
Just as happened with figures like Greta Thunberg or Malala Yousafzai, her communicative strength lies in perceived coherence: always telling the same truth, even when it is not convenient.
Collective psychological defense: when the brain prefers to deny
In addition to individual mechanisms, social psychology also describes collective reactions to moral dissonance. When a message undermines an entire identity – national, religious or cultural – the community reacts with denial or derision. It’s a form of collective defense similar to the individual one: ridicule the messenger to avoid addressing the content.
Research in recent years has long discussed the so-called backfire effect, that is, the idea that when we receive information that contradicts our beliefs, we end up strengthening them instead of changing them.
The most recent studies (Nyhan, PNAS2021) show, however, that this rarely happens: generally, corrections improve the accuracy of beliefs at least somewhat, even if the effect tends to disappear quickly. The real problem is therefore not an automatic “boomerang effect”, but the fragility of the corrections: they do not last long and are quickly overwhelmed by the flow of political and media messages that reinforce more comfortable narratives.
Applied to the case of Francesca Albanese, it means that even when she brings verified data, the listener can register the information immediately but then abandon it, overwhelmed by identity narratives and simplified titles. This is what fuels the polarization around his figure: his clear communication comes into conflict with deep-rooted beliefs, and often the media context ends up nullifying its strength.
Not politics, but collective psychology
Francesca Albanese’s interview in the podcast Dyeing shows how moral communication can touch deep chords. It is not a question of ideology, but of social psychology: how we react when faced with truth, suffering and responsibility.
Every time we “hit the messenger”, we are actually defending our internal balance. But recognizing the mechanism can help us interrupt it: to distinguish emotional annoyance from the validity of the message.
Understanding the public mind is the first step to more conscious empathy. And perhaps also for a society that is finally able to listen to those who bring uncomfortable truths without having to burn them at the stake.
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