Backfire Effect

[kiwi57]

In a recent thread, one of the participants pre-emptively moved to poison the well by announcing that anyone who disagreed with him/her would only do so due to something called the "backfire effect."

Now, however, it seems that the so-called "backfire effect" turns out to be junk science.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2018/01/08/the_six_stages_of_a_failed_psychological_theory.html

I wonder when the critics are going to stop appealing to these sorts of discredited notions?

[cinepro]

11 minutes ago, kiwi57 said:

In a recent thread, one of the participants pre-emptively moved to poison the well by announcing that anyone who disagreed with him/her would only do so due to something called the "backfire effect."

Now, however, it seems that the so-called "backfire effect" turns out to be junk science.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2018/01/08/the_six_stages_of_a_failed_psychological_theory.html

I wonder when the critics are going to stop appealing to these sorts of discredited notions?

That's an interesting article, but it only reinforces my belief in the Backfire Effect.  It's just what you would expect to see if it were real.

Edited January 9, 2018 by cinepro

[kiwi57]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

That's an interesting article, but it only reinforces my belief in the Backfire Effect.  It's just what you would expect to see if it were real.

Heh heh heh...

[Guest]

13 hours ago, kiwi57 said:

In a recent thread, one of the participants pre-emptively moved to poison the well by announcing that anyone who disagreed with him/her would only do so due to something called the "backfire effect."

Now, however, it seems that the so-called "backfire effect" turns out to be junk science.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2018/01/08/the_six_stages_of_a_failed_psychological_theory.html

I wonder when the critics are going to stop appealing to these sorts of discredited notions?

I have never read anyone make any such claim on this website. Do you have the post that you can link? 

[hope_for_things]

13 hours ago, kiwi57 said:

In a recent thread, one of the participants pre-emptively moved to poison the well by announcing that anyone who disagreed with him/her would only do so due to something called the "backfire effect."

Now, however, it seems that the so-called "backfire effect" turns out to be junk science.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2018/01/08/the_six_stages_of_a_failed_psychological_theory.html

I wonder when the critics are going to stop appealing to these sorts of discredited notions?

Something is junk science because a couple bloggers say it is?  This link and the Slate article that he referenced aren't scholarly approaches with rigorous proof that debunks psychological studies.  

Is the science so settled on the backfire effect that no new findings are possible and no other interpretations of the dynamics happening are possible?  No, of course not.  Qualified scholars will continue to produce studies and gain new insights and some of these insights will even challenge old studies, and our understanding of human nature will continue to grow and be refined through this process.

The author of your linked piece is trying to do a take down on the entire discipline of psychology.  This is a garbage take and if you can't see that by the writing style and the assertions made by this guy, then I'm sorry.  

[hope_for_things]

52 minutes ago, Bill "Papa" Lee said:

I have never read anyone make any such claim on this website. Do you have the post that you can link? 

Papa,

I'm pretty sure it was me.  I can't remember the thread I commented on, but I remember predicting that the backfire effect would prove itself out in the thread, and I was proven correct, as future posters demonstrated that my prediction was accurate.  I guess my being correct really must have bothered Kiwi or something, enough that he wanted to bring this up again.  Funny how that works.  

[Exiled]

Just from my personal observations, I think the backfire effect is a real phenomenon. I saw it clearly during the last real estate crash where certain real estate professionals could not and would not believe it would take 10 years or more for some real estate to come back to the 2006-2007 values. Many experts made these predictions but they refused to believe it and dug in to their false beliefs. It happens here too. People are subborn, myself included.

Edited January 9, 2018 by Exiled

[kiwi57]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Papa,

I'm pretty sure it was me.  I can't remember the thread I commented on, but I remember predicting that the backfire effect would prove itself out in the thread, and I was proven correct, as future posters demonstrated that my prediction was accurate.  I guess my being correct really must have bothered Kiwi or something, enough that he wanted to bring this up again.  Funny how that works.  

No, you weren't proven correct. All that happened was that people disagreed with you, and in that only were you "proven correct." You knew that that would happen (surprise!) and so you invoked "backfire effect" in order to deligitimise the disagreement before it came. It was a shabby attempt to poison the well.

The thread did not prove any "backfire effect." It merely proved that we don't just roll over and agree with every criticism.

As to the "backfire effect" being anything other than junk science: see here:

http://djflynn.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/elusive-backfire-effect-wood-porter.pdf

Of course, you may still prefer to believe in it. Maybe that's evidence for the "backfire effect."

[cinepro]

1 hour ago, Exiled said:

Just from my personal observations, I think the backfire effect is a real phenomenon. I saw it clearly during the last real estate crash where certain real estate professionals could not and would not believe it would take 10 years or more for some real estate to come back to the 2006-2007 values. Many experts made these predictions but they refused to believe it and dug in to their false beliefs. It happens here too. People are subborn, myself included.

I'm not sure that's the "backfire effect", since it deals with a future prediction.

The classic example of a "backfire effect" is where you are using data to convince someone of something.

Let's say, hypothetically, that you have this conversation with your brother*:

 

You: Bill, I understand you support the death penalty for some crimes.  Why is that?

Bill: I don't support it strongly, but I think it's a good idea because it can help deter people from committing crimes and makes us safer.

You: Interestingly, I have some studies here that show that states that have the death penalty don't actually have lower crime rates for those crimes.

Bill: But not only that, I very strongly support the death penalty because it's immoral to not punish people for those crimes.

It's a "backfire" because while you thought you would move Bill away from supporting the death penalty with the data, once the data showed he was wrong he had to come up with another reason to support it and in defense he supported it more strongly than before.

 

 

*Note: All of this is totally made up.  I don't know if those arguments or data actually exist.

[Scott Lloyd]

6 hours ago, Bill "Papa" Lee said:

I have never read anyone make any such claim on this website. Do you have the post that you can link? 

In case you haven't already figured it out, it is hope_for_things who has been making an issue of "the backfire effect." In fact, it has become a mantra with him.

As I recall, he responded to one of my posts with only two words: "Backfire effect," as though he expected I would know immediately what he meant. At the time, I didn't.

 

Edited January 9, 2018 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Something is junk science because a couple bloggers say it is?  This link and the Slate article that he referenced aren't scholarly approaches with rigorous proof that debunks psychological studies.  

Is the science so settled on the backfire effect that no new findings are possible and no other interpretations of the dynamics happening are possible?  No, of course not.  Qualified scholars will continue to produce studies and gain new insights and some of these insights will even challenge old studies, and our understanding of human nature will continue to grow and be refined through this process.

 

Meanwhile, a lot of people pick it up and run with it as though it were a settled matter. Kind of like the latest supermarket tabloid.

If not "junk science," perhaps it could be called fad science.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Exiled said:

Just from my personal observations, I think the backfire effect is a real phenomenon. I saw it clearly during the last real estate crash where certain real estate professionals could not and would not believe it would take 10 years or more for some real estate to come back to the 2006-2007 values. Many experts made these predictions but they refused to believe it and dug in to their false beliefs. It happens here too. People are subborn, myself included.

There is a difference between being stubborn or refusing to accept new contradictory evidence of one's belief and beliefs being actually strengthened by contradictory evidence.

add-on:  what cinepro said

Insisting that any disagreement will be evidence of backfire effect is sloppy since one likely hasn't measured the strength of beliefs beforehand and if they are already quite strong, how would you know that your evidence was all that strong and not just your own bias, their bias caused them to automatically  reject evidence without processing it, their bias caused them to weigh the value of the evidence much less than your bias caused you to weigh the evidence value or probably at least a half a dozen options besides the alleged backfire effect, which may or may not exist?

Edited January 9, 2018 by Calm

[CA Steve]

For a while I suspected that many posters here would combine the backfire effect with their own persecution complex. After reading this thread I am more  firmly convinced that to be true and I will be condemned for pointing it out.

 

 

[Calm]

If a joke, very funny.

[Scott Lloyd]

At long last, I think I have a good, capsule definition of "backfire effect": a condition afflicting anyone who does not concede and genuflect to my impeccable reasoning in an argument.

[Exiled]

42 minutes ago, Calm said:

There is a difference between being stubborn or refusing to accept new contradictory evidence of one's belief and beliefs being actually strengthened by contradictory evidence.

add-on:  what cinepro said

Insisting that any disagreement will be evidence of backfire effect is sloppy since one likely hasn't measured the strength of beliefs beforehand and if they are already quite strong, how would you know that your evidence was all that strong and not just your own bias, their bias caused them to automatically  reject evidence without processing it, their bias caused them to weigh the value of the evidence much less than your bias caused you to weigh the evidence value or probably at least a half a dozen options besides the alleged backfire effect, which may or may not exist?

So, what do you think of cinepro's death penalty example and the arguments that go back and forth here? Do you see stubborn refusals to change opinions despite the evidence?

[Calm]

Sure, but the refusals could be for a number of reasons and there is generally no reason to assume the contradictory evidence actually strengthens belief in the first place from what I have seen.

I see most evidence being presented here as not the irrefutable type...especially if the methodology of how that evidence was found is not shared.

I am of the opinion it is extremely arrogant and rather close minded to see oneself in the position of presenting strong, pretty much irrefutable evidence such that the only reason people would disagree with you is the Backfire Effect.  And if one starts from that position...predicts that people will react that way...it would likely impede their own ability to see evidence in a new way as they have already set up the scenario of what the discussion is going to be in their head and that raises the probability they will automatically categorize any disagreement as caused by the backfire and not by reasonable ideas, so they are less likely to both seriously consider those ideas or even pay enough attention to them to fully understand them while it becomes more likely their interpretation will be a caricature of others' positions.

Edited January 9, 2018 by Calm

[Scott Lloyd]

7 minutes ago, Exiled said:

So, what do you think of cinepro's death penalty example and the arguments that go back and forth here? Do you see stubborn refusals to change opinions despite the evidence?

Cinepro's example was a hypothetical. He even said so in a footnote.

 

[Glenn101]

2 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Papa,

I'm pretty sure it was me.  I can't remember the thread I commented on, but I remember predicting that the backfire effect would prove itself out in the thread, and I was proven correct, as future posters demonstrated that my prediction was accurate.  I guess my being correct really must have bothered Kiwi or something, enough that he wanted to bring this up again.  Funny how that works.  

I would have a problem with anyone stating "that anyone who disagreed with him/her would only do so due to something called the "backfire effect."

[Calm]

This is likely the post:

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/69970-homosexuality-1981-handbook-for-priesthood-leaders/?do=findComment&comment=1209780081

 

[Exiled]

50 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Cinepro's example was a hypothetical. He even said so in a footnote.

 

Yes it was and I never thought otherwise. But thanks for pointing out that it was a hypothetical to the few who may have thought differently. 

So what do you think of my question to calm? Do some people stubbornly refuse to change their stance here despite the evidence?

Edited January 9, 2018 by Exiled

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Something is junk science because a couple bloggers say it is?  This link and the Slate article that he referenced aren't scholarly approaches with rigorous proof that debunks psychological studies.  

Is the science so settled on the backfire effect that no new findings are possible and no other interpretations of the dynamics happening are possible?  No, of course not.  Qualified scholars will continue to produce studies and gain new insights and some of these insights will even challenge old studies, and our understanding of human nature will continue to grow and be refined through this process.

The author of your linked piece is trying to do a take down on the entire discipline of psychology.  This is a garbage take and if you can't see that by the writing style and the assertions made by this guy, then I'm sorry.  

To be fair calling psychology a science has always been an undeserved honor. Same with economics.

[Scott Lloyd]

25 minutes ago, Exiled said:

Yes it was and I never thought otherwise. But thanks for pointing out that it was a hypothetical to the few who may have thought differently. 

So what do you think of my question to calm? Do some people stubbornly refuse to change their stance here despite the evidence?

I don't know that I have see the phenomenon cinepro sought to illustrate with his hypothetical, wherein one appears or pretends at first to be nonchalant in his position and then seems to become more dogmatic when refuted.

What I see happening more often is that a good argument is ignored and the same assertion is made later as though the rebuttal had never been given.

For example, I've seen folks repeatedly claim the Church or its spokesmen have never said that homosexuality will cease to continue after death. Each time, I have provided documentation that such statements have indeed been made. Then, I later see the claim repeated as though it had never been rebutted. With one individual in particular I refuted his claim three or four times before I could get him to acknowledge that I had done so.

 

[hope_for_things]

2 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

In case you haven't already figured it out, it is hope_for_things who has been making an issue of "the backfire effect." In fact, it has become a mantra with him.

As I recall, he responded to one of my posts with only two words: "Backfire effect," as though he expected I would know immediately what he meant. At the time, I didn't.

 

If bringing something up a couple times makes it a mantra, then I guess so, but I doubt I've mentioned it more than 2-3 times on this message board in the last few years I've been participating.  

I do like pointing out when biases influence thinking as I think its very important to try and understand our biases.  

[hope_for_things]

2 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Meanwhile, a lot of people pick it up and run with it as though it were a settled matter. Kind of like the latest supermarket tabloid.

If not "junk science," perhaps it could be called fad science.

Use of a label like fad science to describe something you don't agree with strikes me as anti intellectual.  I guess that's to be expected on a religious message board from a religion where some leaders have spoken out against intellectuals and are openly cynical about science.  Supernatural thinking is often preferred in religious circles to rigor and reason.