Backfire effect

[[File:James Harrold Volkswagen Type 1 Lydden Hill 2012 001.jpg|thumb|right|165px|This backfire effect looks buggy.]]
{{psychology}}
{{cquote|What should be evident from the studies on the backfire effect is you can never win an argument online. When you start to pull out facts and figures, hyperlinks and quotes, you are actually making the opponent feel as though they are even more sure of their position than before you started the debate. As they match your fervor, the same thing happens in your skull. The backfire effect pushes both of you deeper into your original beliefs.|||''You Are Not So Smart'' — The Backfire Effect<ref>[http://youarenotsosmart.com/2011/06/10/the-backfire-effect/#more-1218 You Are Not So Smart — The Backfire Effect]</ref>}}
The '''backfire effect''' is a possible psychological effect that was originally proposed by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler in 2010 based on their research of a single survey item among conservatives,<ref>[http://www.dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/nyhan-reifler.pdf When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions] by Brendan Nyhan & Jason Reifler (2010) ''Political Behavior'' 32(2):303–330.</ref><ref name=wood>[http://djflynn.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/elusive-backfire-effect-wood-porter.pdf The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes’ Steadfast Factual Adherence] by Thomas Wood & Ethan Porter (January 2018) ''Political Behavior'' pp. 1-29. doi:10.1007/s11109-018-9443-y.</ref>
{{cquote|Immediately before the [[Iraq War|U.S. invasion]], [[Iraq]] had an active [[weapons of mass destruction]] program, the ability to produce these weapons, and large stockpiles of WMD, but [[Saddam Hussein]] was able to hide or destroy these weapons right before U.S. forces arrived.}}

The effect was subsequently supported by other studies,<ref>Nyhan, Brenda., J. Reifler, S. Richey, and G. L. Freed. "Effective Messages in Vaccine Promotion: A Randomized Trial." ''Pediatrics'' 133, 4 (2014): e835–42. doi:10.1542/peds.2013-2365.</ref><ref>Nyhan, Brendan, Jason Reifler, and Peter A. Ubel. "The Hazards of Correcting Myths about Health Care Reform." ''Medical Care'', 51, 2 (2013): 127–32. doi:10.1097/MLR.0b013e318279486b.</ref><ref>Berinsky, Adam J. "Rumors and Health Care Reform: Experiments in Political Misinformation." ''British Journal of Political Science'', June (2015): 1–22. doi:10.1017/S0007123415000186.</ref><ref name=wood/> although other studies found no evidence for the claim, or that it was only suggested under certain circumstances. The existence, strength, and applicability of the backfire effect are all currently under debate and study, with the best available evidence suggesting that it doesn't actually exist. Ironically, the idea of the effect has been confidently embraced in general and become something of a pop psychology phenomenon, despite the dubious evidence.

The effect is claimed to be that when, in the face of contradictory [[evidence]], established beliefs do not change but actually ''get stronger''. The effect has been demonstrated experimentally in some psychological tests, where subjects are given data that either reinforces or goes against their existing [[bias]]es — and in most cases, people can be shown to ''increase'' their confidence in their prior position regardless of the evidence they were faced with. In a pessimistic sense, this would make most [[refuting|refutations]] useless.

==How it gets exploited==
By knowing that one can profit from perpetuating a falsehood, one can exploit the backfire effect to one's own advantage. This happens for example when corporations know that they are doing something that is harmful but nonetheless promote [[denialism]]. The corporation can even publicly admit that their product is harmful while simultaneously covertly funding [[astroturf]] groups that promote the denialist message. Examples of this [[coverup]] behavior include the [[asbestos]] industry, the [[tobacco]] industry, the [[sugar]] industry, and the [[fossil fuel]] industry with regard to [[global warming]].<ref name=mooney>[http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/04/denial-science-chris-mooney/ The Science of Why We Don't Believe Science: How our brains fool us on climate, creationism, and the vaccine-autism link] by Chris Mooney (May/June 2011) ''Mother Jones''.</ref> The exploitation is not limited to industries, but also includes [[fundamentalist Christian]]s ([[creationism]]) and [[alternative medicine]] promoters ([[anti-vaccination movement]]).<ref name=mooney/>

==How to fight it==
{{cquote|Not taking ideas personally is made easier by the meta-belief that holding certain beliefs does not make you a better person.|||{{wpl|Peter Boghossian}}<ref>[https://twitter.com/peterboghossian/status/834862162463985664 Not taking ideas personally is made easier by the meta-belief that holding certain beliefs does not make you a better person.] by Peter Boghossian (10:27 PM - 23 Feb 2017) ''Twitter''.</ref>}}

Try to evaluate whether the person that you are speaking with is being [[Intellectual honesty|intellectually dishonest]], and therefore highly unlikely to change. Intellectual dishonesty can be due to a person having a vested interest in lying, whether that be financial (e.g., [[denial]] of [[climate change]] because of working for the [[fossil fuel]] industry) or a fixed [[worldview]] (e.g., [[lying for Jesus]]). If a person responds to logic and facts, they may be more likely to change.

*Let tempers cool down a bit before bringing a subject up again. A large portion of the backfire effect stems from people not wanting to be seen as wrong or stupid in front of an audience. Once the [[flame war]]s die down a bit, people will be more emotionally able to accept your viewpoint.
*[[Upton Sinclair's Law|Stymied by the opponent's selfishness]]? If possible, you should show your opponent how something would benefit them personally. A lot of people view certain positions as a [[Game theory|zero sum game]], and if you're able to show that it's not (or at least they'd get the long end of the stick), you can possibly bring them around.
*Just wait for a little bit. Sometimes what you said actually sank in to some extent; they just need some time to mull it over.
*Remember to ask questions — in fact, consider making at least half of your communications to them questions (genuine ones) instead of statements. Questions are often seen as less 'accusatory' and mulling over a question requires more thought than an angry knee-jerk reaction.

Of course, the most important thing to remember is that you yourself are just as vulnerable to it as your opponent. Make sure you don't fall victim to the backfire effect by carefully examining evidence that seems to contradict your preconceptions, and allowing for the possibility that you might have been wrong.

==Failures to replicate==
{{main|Reproducibility}}
Some later research calls the existence of the backfire effect into question. Thomas Wood and Ethan Porter had a follow-up study where rather than surveying people about a single survey question in a single way, they asked 10,100 subjects about 52 different issues.<ref name=wood/> Wood and Porter only observed one instance of the backfire effect, and that was when using Nyhan & Reifler's original survey item as originally phrased.<ref name=wood/> When Wood and Porter simplified the phrasing of that survey item, they did not observe the backfire effect.<ref name=wood/> Overall, Wood and Porter's research casts doubt on the existence of the backfire effect.<ref name=wood/> The results were consistent with a very well-documented aspect of mass public opinion surveys, that respondents avoid thinking (cognitive effort).<ref name=wood/><ref>[https://wwnorton.com/college/history/america-essential-learning/docs/WLippmann-Public_Opinion-1922.pdf ''Public Opinion''] by Walter Lippmann (1922) Harcourt, Brace and Company.</ref><ref group=note>To borrow a quotation from [[Cognitive dissonance|another of our articles]]:<br/><br/>{{cquote|People don't like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant.|||Attributed to Helen Keller (possibly erroneously)}}</ref> This consistency likely also explains the difference between Wood and Porter's study and studies that confirmed the backfire effect, because many of those studies were conducted in academic settings, whose denizens are well-known for enjoying cognitive effort (e.g. coming up with counter-arguments in the face of facts).<ref name=wood/>

==See also==
*[[Blowback]]
*[[Confirmation bias]] — the converse effect
*[[Cognitive dissonance]]<ref group=note>Further information can be found in [[Cognitive dissonance|that article]], but to summarize the relationship between the subjects, [[Cognitive dissonance#Resolving dissonance|the common (but, for lack of a better word, inefficient) defense strategies that most people naturally employ against cognitive dissonance]] may go a long way towards explaining the backfire effect (assuming, of course, that it actually exists). (And that's not even getting into [[Cognitive dissonance#Cumulative cognitive dissonance|the potential ugly consequences of those defense strategies backfiring and allowing the dissonance to reach critical mass…]])</ref>
*[[Pommer's Law]]
*[[SIWOTI]]
*[[Streisand effect]]

==External links==
*[https://effectiviology.com/backfire-effect-facts-dont-change-minds/ The Backfire Effect: Why Facts Don’t Always Change Minds]: an overview of the backfire effect, when and why it influences people, and how to counter it. 
*[http://www.psmag.com/politics-and-law/why-even-your-best-arguments-never-work-64910 Want to Win a Political Debate? Try Making a Weaker Argument], Pacific Standard Magazine
*[http://bigthink.com/think-tank/the-backfire-effect-why-facts-dont-win-arguments The Backfire Effect: Why Facts Don't Win Arguments], BigThink
*[https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2819073 The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes' Steadfast Factual Adherence], SSRN - couldn't find evidence of Backfire effect
*[https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/i-used-to-be-opposed-to-vaccines-this-is-how-i-changed-my-mind/2019/02/11/20fca654-2e24-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html I used to be opposed to vaccines. This is how I changed my mind.] by Rose Branigin (February 11, 2019) ''The Washington Post''.

==Notes==
{{reflist|group=note}}

==References==
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[[Category:Psychology]]

Categories: Psychology