Backfire Effect

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

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.

This is an awesome sentence. 

[Scott Lloyd]

11 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Use of a label like fad science to describe something you don't agree with strikes me as anti intellectual. 

No more so than the unquestioning or uncritical acceptance of the fad science.

Quote

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.  

If this is an accusation against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, then CFR. And in references in context, please.

Edited to add:

Before proceeding, you ought to familiarize yourself with the content on this page.

Edited January 9, 2018 by Scott Lloyd

[Bernard Gui]

2 hours ago, cinepro said:

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.

What if the response is,

Bill: "Well, here are some studies that contradict your studies." Is that backfire?

[Bernard Gui]

1 hour 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?

Depends on the quality of the evidence. 

[Bernard Gui]

13 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

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.  

What is an intellectual? Are they more rigorous and reasonable than regular folks?

Edited January 9, 2018 by Bernard Gui

[Scott Lloyd]

8 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

This is an awesome sentence. 

I challenge you to diagram it.

[hope_for_things]

16 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

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

The problem I see is when people that haven't studied these issues that think they are qualified with their untrained and uninformed perspectives to critique the experts and their disciplines.  Whether or not you think psychology or economics belongs alongside the hard sciences or not can be debated. 

Either way, this doesn't make these disciplines illegitimate or somehow less important, and it certainly doesn't mean people without any formal training and expertise should be listened to when they attempt to dismiss these disciplines.  

[The Nehor]

3 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

The problem I see is when people that haven't studied these issues that think they are qualified with their untrained and uninformed perspectives to critique the experts and their disciplines.  Whether or not you think psychology or economics belongs alongside the hard sciences or not can be debated. 

Either way, this doesn't make these disciplines illegitimate or somehow less important, and it certainly doesn't mean people without any formal training and expertise should be listened to when they attempt to dismiss these disciplines.  

Replace psychology in that explanation with astrology or even with Mormonism. Does it still make sense that insiders should automatically be immune to criticism from those who are not formally trained in the field?

Oh, and I was originally studying economics in school. I still follow it. I do not so easily dismiss my own conclusions about it.

Edited January 9, 2018 by The Nehor

[hope_for_things]

3 hours ago, kiwi57 said:

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."

Doing a little searching I noticed that D.J. Flynn has a PHD in Political Science.  I also noticed that his paper that you linked to is not published in any academic journals.  I'm not sure whether his criticisms of the backfire effect are even on the radar of the scholars who have published on the subject. 

I couldn't really find any good back and forth between them from my online searches.  If you are aware of any engagement on this topic between Mr. Flynn and actual experts in psychology that have conducted peer reviewed studies with duplicated results in published scientific journals, could you please post that evidence.  

Otherwise, I'm left to suspect that Mr. Flynn's criticisms are falling short of even reaching the experts.  My suspicion is that his methods haven't risen to a rigorous enough level to be valid criticisms, or perhaps he's cherry picking evidence and not conducting a methodical systematic review of the backfire effect.  Or perhaps his target audience isn't the scholarly community at all, but rather he may be seeking to make political commentary for a non scholarly audience rather than actually trying to engage with the scholarly community.  I can only guess at this point what the purpose of a non published paper posted on his own web site would be. 

[hope_for_things]

22 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

No more so than the unquestioning or uncritical acceptance of the fad science.

Since there have been multiple peer reviewed studies that have shown this backfire effect, I'm going to stick with the published scholarly community until there is evidence to follow otherwise.  What seems irresponsible to me is to follow the untrained critics on this post.  

26 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

If this is an accusation against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, then CFR. And in references in context, please.

Not sure exactly which statement I made you want a CFR for.  Is it my comment that church leaders have spoken out against intellectuals?  I'm sure you're familiar with the Boyd K. Packer infamous talk in 1993 (I couldn't find it linked to on the LDS.org site, but if you really need a link to such an infamous talk, I will find a web site that has it.)  

I'm sure you're also familiar with Bruce R. McKonkie's many statements against evolution or Joseph Fielding Smith's statements.  My question to you is why issue a CFR when I'm sure you're familiar with all these things already?  Is it because you want to explain these evidences away?  Or are you going to get stuck on this irrelevant argument about what is "official church doctrine" vs. what have church leaders expressed in their public addresses.  I'm not really interested in debating what constitutes official doctrine.   

 

[hope_for_things]

27 minutes ago, Bernard Gui said:

What is an intellectual? Are they more rigorous and reasonable than regular folks?

Often I believe they are more rigorous and reasonable because they have developed the necessary skills and have practiced intellectual thought.  Are they more moral or more intuitive or more kind or any other number of descriptors, I would say no.  

[hope_for_things]

25 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Replace psychology in that explanation with astrology or even with Mormonism. Does it still make sense that insiders should automatically be immune to criticism from those who are not formally trained in the field?

Oh, and I was originally studying economics in school. I still follow it. I do not so easily dismiss my own conclusions about it.

I think there is some merit to what you say if there is a formally trained Mormon scholar, and an outsider that really has very little exposure to Mormonism, it would be hard for that outsider to engage at a thoughtful level with those who have trained experience in Mormon studies. 

The difference that I'm critiquing is that those who aren't educated about psychology or economics would have a hard time engaging with the materials because of their lack of understanding, and in that case their criticisms may be completely irrelevant.  Also, there are a variety of different perspectives already within the insider communities on psychology or economics all across the political spectrum.  

Question for you, do you think published professors in economics should consider any criticism you make about economic studies just because you began your studies on that subject.  Do you think your limited studies (I'm assuming its limited based on your post) qualifies you to critique scholarly peer reviewed studies on economic topics? 

[Calm]

See it has already been posted..Flynn was not the author of the paper, btw.

Papers presented at conferences may not get published in journals, but it doesn't invalidate them as legitimate research.  Certainly such counts towards tenure and gets put on one's resume.  Depending on the rating of the conference and the journal, it may be more prestigious than a publication in a journal.

The original authors discussing the backfire effect look like they were consulted by the two authors as they are mentioned in the dedication/acknowledgement section.

Given how often the backfire effect is used to explain political position, it makes sense that it gets examined at a Political Science conference

"The study, presented at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association this summer, was conducted by Ethan Porter at George Washington University and Thomas Wood at Ohio State University."

https://www.poynter.org/news/fact-checking-doesnt-backfire-new-study-suggests

Edited January 9, 2018 by Calm

[Scott Lloyd]

43 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Since there have been multiple peer reviewed studies that have shown this backfire effect, I'm going to stick with the published scholarly community until there is evidence to follow otherwise.  What seems irresponsible to me is to follow the untrained critics on this post.  

Not sure exactly which statement I made you want a CFR for.  Is it my comment that church leaders have spoken out against intellectuals?  I'm sure you're familiar with the Boyd K. Packer infamous talk in 1993 (I couldn't find it linked to on the LDS.org site, but if you really need a link to such an infamous talk, I will find a web site that has it.)  

I'm sure you're also familiar with Bruce R. McKonkie's many statements against evolution or Joseph Fielding Smith's statements.  My question to you is why issue a CFR when I'm sure you're familiar with all these things already?  Is it because you want to explain these evidences away?  Or are you going to get stuck on this irrelevant argument about what is "official church doctrine" vs. what have church leaders expressed in their public addresses.  I'm not really interested in debating what constitutes official doctrine.   

 

Yes I'm familiar with the Boyd K. Packer talk to which you refer and with some of the teachings of Elder McConkie and Elder/President Smith. Taken in context, I'm not willing to accept that they displayed the wholesale anti-intellectualism you seem determined to impute to them -- not without anything more specific from you than a blithe wave of the hand.

Furthermore, I don't concede that any of this justifies the disparagement you level at the Church of Jesus Christ. Did you bother to look at any of the FairMormon web page I cited?

[kiwi57]

58 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Doing a little searching I noticed that D.J. Flynn has a PHD in Political Science.  I also noticed that his paper that you linked to is not published in any academic journals.  I'm not sure whether his criticisms of the backfire effect are even on the radar of the scholars who have published on the subject. 

I couldn't really find any good back and forth between them from my online searches.  If you are aware of any engagement on this topic between Mr. Flynn and actual experts in psychology that have conducted peer reviewed studies with duplicated results in published scientific journals, could you please post that evidence.  

Otherwise, I'm left to suspect that Mr. Flynn's criticisms are falling short of even reaching the experts.  My suspicion is that his methods haven't risen to a rigorous enough level to be valid criticisms, or perhaps he's cherry picking evidence and not conducting a methodical systematic review of the backfire effect.  Or perhaps his target audience isn't the scholarly community at all, but rather he may be seeking to make political commentary for a non scholarly audience rather than actually trying to engage with the scholarly community.  I can only guess at this point what the purpose of a non published paper posted on his own web site would be. 

Evidently you are too attached to this particular polemical weapon to give it up without a fight.

Here's another article:

https://slate.com/health-and-science/2018/01/weve-been-told-were-living-in-a-post-truth-age-dont-believe-it.html

[Scott Lloyd]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

 

The image didn't come through on my end.

 

[kiwi57]

48 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Since there have been multiple peer reviewed studies that have shown this backfire effect, I'm going to stick with the published scholarly community until there is evidence to follow otherwise.  What seems irresponsible to me is to follow the untrained critics on this post.  

Not sure exactly which statement I made you want a CFR for.  Is it my comment that church leaders have spoken out against intellectuals?  I'm sure you're familiar with the Boyd K. Packer infamous talk in 1993 (I couldn't find it linked to on the LDS.org site, but if you really need a link to such an infamous talk, I will find a web site that has it.)  

I'm sure you're also familiar with Bruce R. McKonkie's many statements against evolution or Joseph Fielding Smith's statements.  My question to you is why issue a CFR when I'm sure you're familiar with all these things already?  Is it because you want to explain these evidences away?  Or are you going to get stuck on this irrelevant argument about what is "official church doctrine" vs. what have church leaders expressed in their public addresses.  I'm not really interested in debating what constitutes official doctrine.   

 

Or it could be because Scott doesn't accept the standard anti-Mormon spin on those statements.

 

[Calm]

And in the article I referenced above, the originals scholars discuss the new findings:

"Porter and Wood showed 8,100 subjects corrections to claims made by political figures on 36 different topics. Only on one of the 36 issues (the misperception that WMD were found in Iraq) did they detect a backfire effect. Even then, a simpler phrasing of the same correction led to no backfire. They conclude that "by and large, citizens heed factual information, even when such information challenges their partisan and ideological commitments." (Nyhan and Reifler have touched on these new findings in a literature review.)"

[Calm]

15 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

The image didn't come through on my end.

 

I have deleted it as it is the same link kiwi provided.

Interesting that the authors anticipated finding the effect and didn't, contrary to their expectations:

"Originally, when Tom and I designed this study, we anticipated identifying backfire effects across the political and ideological spectrum. We thought we would see which issues would prompt liberals to backfire and which issues prompted conservatives to backfire. But as time went by and we conducted study after study, we found that no one was exhibiting backfire across any issue.

Wood: Ethan and I were in grad school when the Nyhan/Reifler paper came out, and for the first time we were reading this hugely provocative claim that factual interventions can compound factual ignorance, which has all sorts of implications for democracy and the marketplace of ideas. It was such an important claim that we were both drawn to do work in this area....

Wood: And we went to incredible lengths to find backfire. We were doing these experiments in the height of the presidential primaries and the middle of the debates. We were taking the most controversial people and the most controversial statements.

We tested allusive statements, thinking that the easiest way to trigger backfire was to correct a co-ideologue for an allusion rather than a literal statement. The fact that their pattern remains the same speaks to the elusiveness of the backfire effect."

Edited January 9, 2018 by Calm

[hope_for_things]

3 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Yes I'm familiar with the Boyd K. Packer talk to which you refer and with some of the teachings of Elder McConkie and Elder/President Smith. Taken in context, I'm not willing to accept that they displayed the wholesale anti-intellectualism you seem determined to impute to them -- not without anything more specific from you than a blithe wave of the hand.

Furthermore, I don't concede that any of this justifies the disparagement you level at the Church of Jesus Christ. Did you bother to look at any of the FairMormon web page I cited?

I'm not interested in labeling the church in a monolithic way, its clear there have been various different views articulated over time by different church leaders.  The anti intellectualism by some leaders is clear to me, while others have embraced the sciences in many ways.  My general assessment is that typical orthodox Mormons hold varying opinions when it comes to science and how it squares with or contradicts their understanding of Mormon theology.  

I did just browse some of the content on that FairMormon page, and even though I typically find myself not liking the tone of the FairMormon writers, I am glad that on this subject it seems they are trying to create space for faithful approaches to science by emphasizing those statements and positions that are compatible.  This is one area where I would generally approve of their efforts, even though I think the history of anti intellectual strains from church leaders is much more complex and diverse than presented here.  

[kiwi57]

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

 

Like Scott, I can't see the image. (Just a "broken" icon.)

Abstract

Can citizens heed factual information, even when such information challenges their partisan and ideological attachments? The “backfire effect,” described by Nyhan and Reifler (2010), says no: rather than simply ignoring factual information, presenting respondents with facts can compound their ignorance. In their study, conservatives presented with factual information about the absence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq became more convinced that such weapons had been found. The present paper presents results from five experiments in which we enrolled more than 10,100 subjects and tested 52 issues of potential backfire. Across all experiments, we found no corrections capable of triggering backfire, despite testing precisely the kinds of polarized issues where backfire should be expected. Evidence of factual backfire is far more tenuous than prior research suggests. By and large, citizens heed factual information, even when such information challenges their ideological commitments.

[hope_for_things]

12 minutes ago, kiwi57 said:

Evidently you are too attached to this particular polemical weapon to give it up without a fight.

Here's another article:

https://slate.com/health-and-science/2018/01/weve-been-told-were-living-in-a-post-truth-age-dont-believe-it.html

I read the Slate article and mentioned it an earlier post.  Can you see the bias in that Slate piece?  

I'm not asking for more unqualified bloggers with opinions that are already linked to in your original post.  I'm asking for actual dialogue between Flynn and trained psychologists.  Do you understand the difference between a Slate article and peer reviewed study published in a scientific journal?  

[Calm]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

If you are aware of any engagement on this topic between Mr. Flynn and actual experts in psychology that have conducted peer reviewed studies with duplicated results in published scientific journals, could you please post that evidence.  

You probably didn't find anything since you were searching under the wrong name.  From the interview .I linked to earlier:

"The authors of the original study shared your findings even if they didn't align with theirs. To what extent were they involved in the design of the study and how did they react?

Porter: Nyhan and Reifler have been great. We read nightmare stories of senior scholars rejecting critiques or challenges made by junior scholars. They have been nothing but models of what you'd want a senior scholar to do when their prior work is challenged. They have been great. They weren't involved at all in the design of the paper though — we sent it to them after we'd completed the study.

Wood: The headline is: They've been amazing. As soon as the paper was submitted at (the American Political Science Association), to the panel that Nyhan was chairing, it was accepted. He gave us fantastic notes, he's been incredibly supportive of the work. As you said, his 19,000 Twitter followers have been shown this paper. He has been a model of academic openness on this question."

----

Nyhan calls the work "valuable" on Twitter:

https://mobile.twitter.com/BrendanNyhan/status/790931543237783552

Edited January 9, 2018 by Calm

[hope_for_things]

13 minutes ago, kiwi57 said:

Or it could be because Scott doesn't accept the standard anti-Mormon spin on those statements.

 

What spin are you referring to?  Is there any other way to interpret Packer's statement other than anti - intellectual?    

Quote

The dangers I speak of come from the gay-lesbian movement, the feminist movement (both of which are relatively new), and the ever-present challenge from the so-called scholars or intellectuals. Our local leaders must deal with all three of them with ever-increasing frequency... 

Perhaps if you think Elder Packer wasn't critiquing intellectuals in the same way that I've described, you can tell me how you view his statements?  

[Calm]

Btw, I substituted a different link for the image since kiwi had posted the same link and now the abstract, mine is link to an interview the authors (not Flynn, but Porter and Wood) had and that is what I have been quoting.

Posting the link again since it appears this is a "hot" topic so some may have missed the edit:

https://www.poynter.org/news/fact-checking-doesnt-backfire-new-study-suggests

Given the original scholar was chairing the panel discussing the presentation, it appears the conference is a notable one in the field of Political Science and the paper is being taken as important to the ongoing discussion by the scholars most expert in the area.  Looks like the original one is a scholar in the same field of Political Science.

also, Flynn may be hosting the article on his site because the proceedings have not been published yet...these can at times be years behind schedule if the conferences my husband has been involved in are any clue.

Edited January 9, 2018 by Calm