199 Backfire Effect
The best exploration of this idea that I’ve found is by Skeptical Science and called “The Debunking Handbook”. In a few easy to understand pages they lay out how to address bad information without reinforcing it.
Of course, this guide is aimed at one-way communcation; blogs, articles, and presentations.
For conversations with friends, I’ve had some successes with the Socratic Method. You have to approach the conversation with a genuine desire to understand their views, try to avoid making any critical statements, and ask sincere questions. If you both walk away with a better perspective, that’s all you can hope for. NOBODY changes their mind on the spot, the best you can do is to leave them with some questions they weren’t able to answer. You have to be willing to leave it there, and wait a few weeks for them to mull it over.
Often times, I didn’t know I had changed a mind until months or years later when they let me know. You may not be able to change minds, but you can Inception them.
If anyone else had had succeses changing minds, or has had their mind changed about an unscientific topic, I want to hear from you! I’m working on an interview series called “What Changed Your Mind” and I’d be happy to have you participate. Feel free to reach me by email, twitter, or here in the comments!
Study after study shows that directly confronting opinions only causes a backfire effect.
CRAIG
All the cool kids get pertussis!
ROB
There has to be some way to change her mind.
CRAIG
I hear measles are F-U-N!
ROB
You're not really helping.
CRAIG
Don't worry Timmy, you're just covered in tickles!
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Being confrontational makes them only dig in their heels more. By asking them questions, you can make them ask themselves questions and examine their own beliefs. Used to believe in little green aliens until I talked to a more skeptical friend. Never said I was stupid, just planted the seed of doubt using clever (but reasonable) questions
The death penalty. I used to be completely in favor of it, many years back. But as I got older, heard more and more stories of people wrongfully convicted and wondered how many weren’t discovered before the sentence was carried out, I started to doubt the value of it. Especially since it is supposed to be a deterrent and didn’t seem to be very effective at it.
Then I started to think about how the core concept is supposed to be about rehabilitation – only separate them form the populace if they are fixed in their ways, otherwise get them back on the path. Killing them doesn’t serve the purpose, and how many could have been rehabilitated if we gave it an honest effort instead of just giving up and putting them on death row? How many others were turned sour in attitude because they see this system and lose hope?
Bottom line, I started to see that the negatives far outweighed the positives and changed my mind. We can always let someone out of prison that we wrongfully convicted and do something to try and atone for it. Can’t bring the dead back to life, and that’s a show stopper.
I watched the Penn and Teller BS episode on the Death Penalty, where they make many of the same arguments. Great show (gratuitous nudity being either a plus or a minus, depending on you)
Changing people’s minds, or at least asking questions in a proper discussion…before that happens, we might want to better understand the situation we’re dealing with.
Here are two books that may be of help.
Uncommon Sense: The Heretical Nature of Science
by Alan Cromer
The Unnatural Nature of Science: Why Science Does Not Make (Common) Sense
by Lewis Wolpert
I’m only part way through the first book, but Alan Cromer seems to make good points, in terms of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, about how most people think and view the workings of their world.
Sadly, there don’t appear to be any quick fixes. Better education is key, but that always seems to be an uphill battle.
Keep up the good fight!
I form arguments like chainmail armor. Take small facts and connect them. Eg. young children are more susceptible to most illnesses, our bodies will sometimes fight off harmful bacteria without our realizing we even caught anything, it is possible to infect another person even when showing no symptoms, after beating a specific bacteria, our antibodies recognize a repeated incursion and destroy it before any symptoms manifest. I learned all these details as a child, and verified them when I was older. Drawing the lines between the dots brings the argument together.
I changed my mind about those little magnetic balance bracelets recently, no socratic method required. The truck shop I work at, for some reason, decided to issue every tech one. The crew I am on all looked at each other in utter disbelief that we would one: be issued something almost identical to jewelry in a field where loose, dangling objects are a safety hazard; and two: ever wear the things. To make matters worse the money the company spent could probably have been used to get us a new pump for the coolant sump tank.
But hey, why not. I tried mine on. It immediately proceeded to get tangled/stuck to anything with any sort of protrusion, grabbed small bolts (and tools) as I was trying to use them, and managed to wrap itself up in the lines on a fuel pump I was replacing.
I changed my mind all right. I upgraded them from “hoax” to “worthless garbage of the highest degree”.
Not really relevant, but I figure with the sheer insanity of antivaxers and the seriousness of the topic, some silly was deserved.
Surely if you work in a truck shop you must understand that generators and motors use magnets, so magnets generate energy and your body needs energy? I would love to hear an actual transcript of what your crew actually said, rather than the (I suspect) sanitised version you related here! Still, isn’t it good to know that someone in your management is capable of taking strong but controversial decisions on your well-being?
Make sure when you throw them away that the bin isn’t magnetic or they could be there for a while. Alternatively, throw them high up in the shop at the roof girders and see how long they are up there before someone spots them.
I’ve changed my mind on corporal punishment, the death penalty, the existence of gods, and ghosts. I used to believe in all of them. No one person changed my mind, however. I had some doubts, started investigating, and eventually the weight of evidence piled up on one side and I had to face the fact that I had been wrong. When it comes to actually changing minds, one-way communication seems to work better because then it doesn’t become a back and forth argument. That allows clearer communication and seems to drain much of the emotional charge from it as well.
Thank you for the resource. I had read about these backfire effects and was not sure how to get past them. I like the idea of using the socratic method with possibly explanations of certain key background information. Probably better not to attack the issue directly, but give them the resources to change their mind on their own. The idea of providing an alternative narrative also makes a lot of sense to me because most people reason based on how coherent and compelling a narrative is, rather than how strong the data are.
It is also important to know your audience. There are plenty of people who in my circle who adhere to pseudo-scientific beliefs (myself included, at times) because they are unaware of the evidence, rather than because of an ideological stance. In such cases, I find that solid scientific references, especially systematic reviews, are the best means of persuasion. Of course, my peer group is composed mostly of scientists and medical personnel, so everyone is trained to “follow the data.”
I just raise the question, and give a hint that *I’ve* done a little research without making any judgements on it.
“That aspartame thing you mentioned? Was doing a bit of reading the other day, some interesting stuff on it…”
I just let that trail off and let their natural competitiveness take it from there.