The “Backfire Effect” describes the tendency of people who hold a particular idea or belief to double down on that idea or belief when it is proven to them to be false. It has been touted by some as an always-and-everywhere fact.
I, myself, must confess to talking about it while shaking my head and sighing over how ridiculous and silly my fellow human beings can be.
But now, thanks to Brendan Nyhan, professor of government at Dartmouth College, who conducted one of the original studies that coined the phrase “backfire effect,” we’re discovering that the truth is not quite so concrete and specific as all that.
True, some people are subject to the phenomenon, that is, they really do double down when they’ve been proven to be wrong, but only about 2/5 of people in the Nyhan’s and subsequent studies.
The majority, about 3/5 of the subjects, when shown, with proof, that they were wrong, actually changed their minds.
That tells us two things: 1.) Most people actually are reasonable and tend to move toward what is right and correct; and 2.) Fact Checks work so we should keep producing and reading them.
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