Interestingly, Scott Adams of Dilbert fame reported a study in which people were asked to make up an opinion about something which they believed the opposite. Some time later, the opinion they made up became their actual opinion: i.e. they changed opinion. That worked because the people talked themselves into it. But people naturally resist having their opinions changed.
Most people are also exceedingly poor at validating their inputs: for instance, equal weight might be given to a scare story vs a scientific paper.
All of that pretty much means neutrality is out of the window, doesn't it? And therefore the best way to ensure people have a picture of the real you is to present them with an idealised version that doesn't piss them off
Chris
