A fifteen-minute Holocaust-denial pamphlet measurably weakened students’ belief that the Holocaust occurred.

Evidence

The pretest mean among the other subjects was 60.4, which dropped to 52.3 after reading the Christophersen account (p < .001). To put this in perspective, if we consider the distance between the initial student mean of 60.4 and the neutral point of 40 to indicate how much the students positively believed the Holocaust occurred, Christophersen’s pamphlet cut that nearly The effect was general, both in content and in who was duped. — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 3132

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• SEED: Article angle: the measurable vulnerability of historical knowledge to brief persuasive attacks — the empirical fragility of what we think is settled fact.

Related

• A denialist pamphlet sharply reduced students’ Holocaust-belief scores. (similarity 0.93)
• Even brief denial material measurably lowers belief in the Holocaust (similarity 0.89)
• Denial pamphlet shifted Holocaust belief independent of perceived endorsement (similarity 0.87)
• Denial pamphlets erode general trust in survivors’ testimony, not just targeted facts. (similarity 0.85)
• Students changed Holocaust beliefs from a denialist account but not from a perpetrator’s confession (similarity 0.84)
• Holocaust-denial material was read by 74 students under anonymous conditions (similarity 0.82)
• Schindler’s List had no measurable effect on students’ belief in the Holocaust (similarity 0.82)
• Presented with credible truth and absurd lies, students believed the lie. (similarity 0.81)
• Exposure to denial essays lowers Holocaust belief below factual accounts (similarity 0.81)
• Holocaust belief was measured on an 8-72 scale with 40 as neutral. (similarity 0.80)
• A 1973 pamphlet denies Auschwitz gassings while claiming fear of prosecution (similarity 0.79)