information, even when such information challenges their partisan
and ideological commitments,’ they concluded.
Even in their original study, Nyhan and Reifler found that the
backfire effect is not guaranteed. During the 2004 presidential
campaign, Democrats claimed that George Bush had banned stem
cell research, whereas in reality, he’d limited funding for certain
aspects of it.[62] When Nyhan and Reifler corrected this belief among
liberals, the information was often ignored, but didn’t backfire. ‘The
backfire effect finding got a lot of attention because it was so
surprising,’ Nyhan later said.[63] ‘Encouragingly, it seems to be quite
rare.’ Nyhan, Reifler, Wood and Porter have since teamed up to
explore the topic further. For example, in 2019 they reported that
providing fact-checks during Donald Trump’s election speeches had
changed people’s beliefs about his specific claims, but not their
overall opinion of the candidate.[64] It seems some aspects of
people’s political beliefs are harder to alter than others. ‘We have a lot
more to learn,’ Nyhan said.
When examining beliefs, we also need to be careful about what we
mean by a backfire. Nyhan has noted that there can be confusion
between the backfire effect and a related psychological quirk known
as ‘disconfirmation bias’.[65] This is when we give more scrutiny to
arguments that contradict our existing beliefs than those that we
agree with. Whereas the backfire effect implies that people ignore
opposing arguments and strengthen their existing beliefs,
disconfirmation bias simply means they tend to ignore arguments
they view as weak.
It might seem like a subtle difference, but it’s a crucial one. If the
backfire effect is common, it implies that we can’t persuade people
with conflicting opinions to change their stance. No matter how
convincing our arguments, they will only retreat further into their
beliefs. Debate becomes hopeless and evidence worthless. In
contrast, if people suffer from disconfirmation bias, it means their
views could change, given compelling enough arguments. This
creates a more optimistic outlook. Persuading people may still be
challenging, but it is worth trying.