The Enduring Importance of False Political Beliefs

[d_rawk]

This has made the rounds lately, first on Arstechnica ("Does ideology trump facts? Studies say it often does") and then on Slashdot ("Stuies Say Ideology Trumps Fact").

Blurb from Arstechnica:

We like to think that people will be well informed before making important decisions, such as who to vote for, but the truth is that's not always the case. Being uninformed is one thing, but having a population that's actively misinformed presents problems when it comes to participating in the national debate, or the democratic process. If the findings of some political scientists are right, attempting to correct misinformation might do nothing more than reinforce the false belief.

[...]

Saying that correcting misinformation does little more than reinforce a false belief is a pretty controversial proposal, but the claim is based on a number of studies that examine the effect of political or ideological bias on fact correction. In the studies, volunteers were shown news items or political adverts that contained misinformation, followed by a correction. For example, a study by John Bullock of Yale showed volunteers a political ad created by NARAL that linked Justice John Roberts to a violent anti-abortion group, followed by news that the ad had been withdrawn. Interestingly, Democratic participants had a worse opinion of Roberts after being shown the ad, even after they were told it was false.

[...]

Along those lines, a pair of political scientists, Brendan Nyhan of Duke and Jason Reifler of Georgia State, have shown a similar effect, this time concerning misinformation surrounding the presence of WMDs in Iraq, tax cuts, or stem cell research. Participants were shown news reports that contained inaccuracies, followed by a correction. The news reports were not real, but were presented to the volunteers as coming from either the New York Times or Fox News. Again, the findings suggest that facts that contradicted political ideology were simply not taken in; if anything, challenging misbelief with fact checking has the counterintuitive effect of reinforcing that misbelief.

The paper by Bullock (2006)

Much work on political persuasion maintains that people are influenced by

information that they believe and not by information that they don’t. By this view, false

beliefs have no power if they are known to be false. This helps to explain frequent efforts

to change voters’ attitudes by exposing them to relevant facts. But ï¬ndings from social

psychology suggest that this view requires modiï¬cation: sometimes, false beliefs influence

people’s attitudes even after they are understood to be false. In a trio of experiments, I

demonstrate that the effect is present in people’s thinking about politics and ampliï¬ed by

party identiï¬cation.

The paper by Nyhan & Reifler (2008) (pdf)

An extensive literature addresses citizen ignorance, but very little research focuses on

misperceptions. Can these false or unsubstantiated beliefs about politics be corrected?

Previous studies have not tested the efficacy of corrections in a realistic format. We

conducted four experiments in which subjects read mock news articles that included

either a misleading claim from a politician, or a misleading claim and a correction.

Results indicate that corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the

targeted ideological group. We also document several instances of a “backfire†effect in

which corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.

Is political debate entirely without value, then? Certainly it feels that way at times.

[SaggyBalls]

now debate will hinge on changing beliefs?

that is tricky...

now...i am eating a tasty steak right now. I know how horrible livestock farms are for the environment and I truly appreciate the life lost for my dinner...

In the upcoming years of environmental, economic, and resulting social decay, the big task would be to find a way to persuade me to change my beliefs and practices so that I'd be enjoying, say, a stuffed pepper or roasted eggplant.

So aside from underhanded mindcontrol and dazzling media advertising, how do we get people to shift from one yum to another?

[d_rawk]

now debate will hinge on changing beliefs?

Well, the real question raised is: is debate counter-productive? ie., if I try to dissuade you of a demonstrably false belief with demonstrably true fact, does that only serve to make that false belief stronger, even after you become aware of the falsehood?

Your steak vs. pepper analogy is intriguing - either totally crazy, or totally brilliant