Presenting disconfirming evidence to partisans strengthens rather than weakens their views

Evidence

In a nutshell, whilst at Stanford University, psychologists Charles Lord and Lee Ross asked a bunch of students to give their opinion on capital punishment – then (and still) a controversial issue in the States. A few weeks later, they invited a group of ‘opponents’ and ‘proponents’ back to the lab to consider two pieces of evidence, one confirming and one disconfirming their beliefs about the efficacy of the death penalty. As the researchers predicted, students rated results that confirmed their own opinions as more accurate and more convincing. The net effect of the exercise was that both groups strengthened their initial beliefs, thus ending up with more polarized attitudes (and drifting further apart) than before they were presented with the evidence. For example, a proponent of capital punishment would claim that the supporting study was ‘well thought out and valid’ but the disconfirming evidence had ‘too many flaws’. Surprisingly, the facts backfired. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 132

The “backfire effect” is based on experimental work by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, in which they found that when partisans were presented with evidence that one of their politically expedient beliefs was wrong, they would reject the evidence and “double down” on their mistaken belief. Worse, in some cases the presentation of refutatory evidence caused some subjects to increase the strength of their mistaken beliefs. — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 104

Categorization

• DEFINE: Canonical description of the ‘backfire effect,’ the phenomenon the chapter will presumably complicate.
• XREF: Complements the book’s earlier chapters on why people form tribal political identities. — connects to: Disconfirming evidence can strengthen rather than weaken committed beliefs. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 97; Outrageous trial-balloon positions let the right shift debate ground without debating facts — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk: The Collected and Unpublished…, 1691; Conspiracist claims now align symmetrically with partisan identity on both sides — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying: The New…, 36 (+16 more)
• QUESTION: Nyhan and Reifler’s original findings on the backfire effect were later called into question by replication failures — worth chasing whether the effect survives scrutiny or was overstated.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 132; Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 104

Broader Connections

• Confrontation with contrary evidence can intensify rather than weaken firm belief. #corroborates (0.98) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 97
• Even disconfirmation evidence often fails to break a person’s confirmation bias #corroborates (0.93) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 94
• Prejudice persists because people dismiss evidence contradicting existing attitudes #corroborates (0.86)
• Conspiracists reinterpret disconfirming evidence as planted by the conspirators. #exemplifies (0.85) — Michael Barkun, A Culture of Conspiracy, 95
• People often resist or reverse belief updating rather than tracking evidence #corroborates (0.84) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 104
• Resisting disconfirming evidence only becomes dogmatism after repeated failures #qualifies (0.83) — Bob Altemeyer, The Authoritarian Specter, 2636
• Presenting scientific consensus reduces rather than triggers partisan backfire #contradicts (0.80) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 142
• Confirmation bias and inertia make reputations resistant to disconfirming evidence #corroborates (0.78)
• Even the most partisan reasoners eventually change beliefs under repeated corrective evidence #qualifies (0.78) — Lee McIntyre, Post-Truth, 110
• Repeated stereotypes create interpretive frames that filter out disconfirming evidence #corroborates (0.72) — Carl W. Ernst, Islamophobia in America_ The Anatomy of…, 94
• Cognitive dissonance strengthens rather than weakens false beliefs under contrary evidence #complicates (0.70) — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 1798