The Partisan Effects of a Virtual Primary Election

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The subjects faced four candidates of their own party in a virtual primary election. They read as much or as little information about the candidates they had chosen while a timer counted down to the end of the campaign. The key was that after they had time to learn about the candidates, we interrupted them with phone calls from people who would vote for them if there were an election today.

If dumping evidence into people’s laps often just makes their beliefs stronger, would we just be better off trying some other tactic, or does the truth ever win?

Do people ever come around, or are we causing more harm than good by leaning on facts instead of some other technique?

In this episode we learn from two scientists how to combat the backfire effect. One used an ingenious research method to identify the breaking point at which people stop resisting and begin accepting the fact that they might be wrong. The other literally wrote the instruction manual for avoiding the backfire effect and debunking myths using the latest psychological research into effective persuasive techniques.

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