The Backfire Effect.

June 14, 2011 2:36 AM

The Backfire Effect. (from the always awesome you are not so smart)
posted by seanyboy (42 comments total)

I think Earnest Becker talks about this. Its related to Terror Managment Theory. From Wiki: According to TMT theorists, symbols that create cultural worldviews are fiercely protected, as representations of actual life. The Terror Management Theory posits that when people are reminded of their own deaths, they more readily enforce these symbols, often leading to punitive actions, violence, and war. Experiments have been performed to lend evidence to TMT, primarily carried out by Sheldon Solomon, Tom Pyszczynski, and Jeff Greenberg, seeking to provide proof that mortality salience, or the awareness of one's own death, affects the decision-making of individuals and groups of people.
posted by Lovecraft In Brooklyn at 3:18 AM on June 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

I assumed that this post was going to be about lighting your own farts, but now that I've actually followed the link ... I'm even more certain that it's about lighting your own farts.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 3:18 AM on June 14, 2011 [19 favorites]

This article has solidified my belief that such a thing does not exist.
posted by hudders at 3:50 AM on June 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

There are ways to counter people who believe things that aren't true, and it's not by telling the truth. When approached by wingnuts telling the "Welfare Queen" tale, I give them "the rest of the story", about how her neighbors reported her to a politically-connected bureaucrat in California who told Governor Reagan all about her. His response: "Don't touch her, I'm going to use her as a political punching bag from now on... but let her know we're on to her; if she's making that much money, we'll expect a big donation to the Republican party every election cycle." If they question my story, I ask why nobody, including Reagan, ever made her name public... not always effective, but it has rocked a couple of people's world.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:52 AM on June 14, 2011 [35 favorites]

The point of arguments or debate-like discussions isn't to win or convince the other person of your views. It's like all other human interactions, a broad-band exchange of everything from facial expressions to tone of voice, autobiography and emotional needs. Its about establishing status hierarchies, strategizing, and amusing one's self and others -- all these things mixed up in shifting orders.

On the internet, however, much of the non-verbal signaling and exchange that makes argument enjoyable, or time-and-emotion-limited in real life, is eliminated. The internet makes us all autistic.

We aren't picking up the obvious social cues that rule face-to-face communications, so we flail angrily with our limited toolbox of keyboard-based responses. Blocked from the pleasures of a rich social exchange -- including those of brinkmanship and stimulating danger that go with real-life encounters -- we press buttons and satisfy ourselves small packets of dominance.
posted by Faze at 4:48 AM on June 14, 2011 [17 favorites]

Here's my way of convincing people of their errors: first, chop them up with an axe, then feast on their sweet, gooey brain-matter. Then get high on peyote and vomit it up, and sculpt the resulting sick into a homunculoid version of aforementioned recalcitrant. Feed the creature on fell meats and instruct it in a dark, half-forgotten language until it is cunning enough to whisper to you the occult secrets of limitless power, and after rubbing your naked body with the fat of a slaughtered infant, take to their air on your demonic wings and fly, fly-wait a second that's actually my foolproof method for becoming Governor of Idaho. Uhh ... lemme get back to y'all on this.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 4:50 AM on June 14, 2011 [22 favorites]

Man, quidnunc, that is old school. I usually just write anonymous letters to their parole officers; but your way sounds much more effective.
posted by steambadger at 5:05 AM on June 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

I am completely unaffected by cognitive bias. Ask me anything.
posted by doublehappy at 5:13 AM on June 14, 2011 [4 favorites]

oneswellfoop your comment rocks!
posted by KaizenSoze at 5:20 AM on June 14, 2011

These kinds of articles always just depress me. I feel like a slave to my own mind and biases and there doesn't seem any way around it. And now if someone tries to convince me otherwise I just believe my original doom and gloom scenario even more. What a very "Charlie Brown" beginning to my day.
posted by josher71 at 5:34 AM on June 14, 2011

The internet makes us all autistic

Faze, true! To some extent. Temperamentally, I'm quite alike online and off. If anything, I'm much more mild online, because I don't have the benefit of reading other people's body language, assessing their verbal tone, etc. So I'm (usually!) more careful.

So one thing I'd like to say is that not everybody online is an angry, frustrated keyboard warrior. I think it's very damaging to assume that.

At one point in history it was probably true that the majority of the people you were interacting online with at any given time were (mostly) young (mostly) disaffected and (possibly) frustrated (mostly) men. This has led to certain tropes and beliefs that are now outmoded, old fashioned, and unreliable on a general level, in my opinion. On some sites? Yes. But one shouldn't assume this on sites like Metafilter, or a vast array of other general interest sites that strive to be reasonable online forums.

The loudest, angriest, most acting-out members are rarely going to be representative of the majority. On sites where that kind of interaction is the common currency, you will not find only a mere handful/two-three people standing out as exceptionally belligerent, pugnacious, mud-in-your-eye sorts – pretty much the whole constituency will adopt that veneer. On sites like Metafilter, they stand out more because the majority of people are far more reasonable and polite.

Don't wince. I'm reasonable and polite, and it still doesn't mean I'm a boring unimaginative, rule-following, conforming drone. I'm just not one of those online-autistic balls of hostility and aggression that have become the (erroneously) common measures of internet interaction.

For me, I'm definitely not trying to satisfy myself with "small packages of dominance," and I really am open to learning via online discussion or just online reading (offline reading has never ceased). In fact, it's at least 4/5 of how I learn anything these days (in my advanced years, and having learned ever, ever so much up to now).
posted by taz at 5:48 AM on June 14, 2011 [5 favorites]

I was thinking about a way to test to what degree I'm capable of changing my mind when presented with new evidence and came up with this.
Getting corrected on things I was wrong about tickled my brain pleasantly except the Monty Hall problem which initially blew me away. Link is to Straight Dope, I found there an explanation I was able to finally wrap my mind around.
Granted, I haven't felt strongly about any of these... so YMMV.
posted by hat_eater at 5:55 AM on June 14, 2011

I don't believe it and you can't make me.
posted by briank at 6:04 AM on June 14, 2011

I think learning to overcome the backfire effect is one of the biggest steps a person can take in his or her personal development. Not that it's a single step; the walls fall one at a time like dominoes, some taking longer than others. I know I'd hate to finish this life still believing all the things I was taught as a child, without having at least asked why or made objective inquiries about them. I still wrestle with plenty of cognitive dissonance, but I consider the very fact that I am wrestling to be a great accomplishment in itself.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 6:19 AM on June 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

I'm not sure I believe this article, but one thing's for sure, it was so much easier to read on my iPhone than some Android piece of shit.
posted by fungible at 6:49 AM on June 14, 2011 [7 favorites]

The point of arguments or debate-like discussions isn't to win or convince the other person of your views. It's like all other human interactions, a broad-band exchange of everything from facial expressions to tone of voice, autobiography and emotional needs. Its about establishing status hierarchies, strategizing, and amusing one's self and others -- all these things mixed up in shifting orders.

Interesting, isn't it, that we invaded Iraq, ran a presidential campaign focused on banning gay marriage, brought down an economy, are hell-bent on demonizing climate scientists, and have decided to torture people just based on our need to exchange facial expressions, tone of voice, autobiography and emotional needs. I'm not being sarcastic, actually. We actually did this.

I've been reminding people for years that a lot of political arguments are more about social positioning and status seeking rather than a need for truth, but it ignores the human consequences. If the internet makes us autistic, the real life behavior outlined makes by seanyboy us sociopaths.

"Let's screw unemployed people! That will help me communicate my emotional needs! Let's support torture! That will establish my place in the status hierarchy!"

Fact-based interaction and our ability to adjust our views based on facts is what has allowed us to create modern civilization-- this was one of the pillars of the Enlightenment. Without our ability to do that, there are only warring tribes. It may be difficult, because our baser natures instinctively draw away from fact-based reasoning, but it is a moral offense to encourage this instinct rather than civilize ourselves by encouraging a value system that rewards an ability to understand facts rather than these markers of tribal identity.
posted by deanc at 6:49 AM on June 14, 2011 [10 favorites]

Monty Hall page is great!

Finally, this one from a friend. Suppose we have a lottery with 10,000 "scratch-off-the-dot" tickets. The prize: a car. Ten thousand people buy the tickets, including you. 9,998 scratch off the dots on their tickets and find the message YOU LOSE. Should you offer big money to the remaining ticketholder to exchange tickets with you?

You can figure this one out pretty easily by turning it around: should the remaining ticket holder offer you big money for your ticket?
posted by subdee at 6:58 AM on June 14, 2011

-I don't know.
-I was wrong.
-I am sorry.

These are the three phrases which make people genuinely human; these are the three phrases which make it possible to learn from one's fellow human beings.

What the article doesn't take into account is that there are people who overcome their built-in cognitive biases with mantras like these, who watch for and acknowledge their backfires and dissonance, and know what they mean. The human brain is chaotic, certainly, and can't be trusted to be rational all too often, but there are some people who try to account for this in our daily lives.

The article assumes that the reason people argue about the important issues on the internet is to convince your opponent that they're wrong. Most of us realize that the zealots on any topic will never be converted; we're arguing so that people don't see their arguments go unopposed. We don't care if they hold those opinions, but spreading them should be as difficult in proportion to their absurdity.
posted by MrVisible at 7:10 AM on June 14, 2011 [14 favorites]

we're arguing so that people don't see their arguments go unopposed.

I think most people are arguing simply because is it entertaining to do so.

*Sorry the five minutes is up.*
posted by three blind mice at 7:31 AM on June 14, 2011

Most people would have never built a straw hut, never mind a civilization. At least if we are basing our notion of 'people' on most vocal specimens - it's a common mistake.
posted by hat_eater at 7:38 AM on June 14, 2011

The Monty Hall argument is MOST informative because it forces people to consider the specific facts of the case at hand, rather than relying on gut feelings. The answer to the question depends completely on what the question really is.

And this is how many, many political commentators get away with their bullshit. They want to solidify the answer in people's heads that "we should do X". Then they present various arguments, for which the practical answer is X. These aren't the actual policy question at hand, but it doesn't matter as long as the audience is sufficiently brainwashed into "YES ON X".

Practically, the closest you can get to winning is to point this out. "you would be absolutely right, IF the question was that. Unortunately, the question is this, and that solution won't work for this problem."

(Also, I refuse to believe the "smart" answer for Monty Hall. Haven't figured out why yet, but I will someday.)
posted by gjc at 7:41 AM on June 14, 2011

The Monty Hall argument is MOST informative because it forces people to consider the specific facts of the case at hand, rather than relying on gut feelings...

Also, I refuse to believe the "smart" answer for Monty Hall. Haven't figured out why yet, but I will someday.

LOL.

Note that the formulation that subdee presents is NOT the classic Monty Hall set-up. In subdee's formulation the correct answer is "it doesn't matter" - you have the same probability either way.

The "catch" in the Monty Hall problem is that Monty knows which doors have goats, and will only reveal doors with goats in them.

...it's as if Monty gives you the chance to keep your one door, or open all 999,999 of the other doors, of which he kindly opens the first 999,998 of them for you, leaving, deliberately, the one with the prize.[muddgirl notes that this isn't exactly correct - he'll either leave one with the prize or one without] Clearly, one would choose to open the other 999,999 doors rather than keep the one.

In the lottery problem, no one knows which doors are winners and which are losers until after the doors are opened, so to speak.

There is a 999,999/1,000,000 probability that the contestant selects wrong initially, and the prize is behind one of the other doors. If the host goes about randomly opening doors not knowing where the prize is, the probability is likely that the host will reveal the prize before two doors are left (the contestant's choice and one other) to switch between. If the host happens to not reveal the car, then both of the remaining doors have an equal probability of containing a car.

posted by muddgirl at 7:50 AM on June 14, 2011

Finally, this one from a friend. Suppose we have a lottery with 10,000 "scratch-off-the-dot" tickets. The prize: a car. Ten thousand people buy the tickets, including you. 9,998 scratch off the dots on their tickets and find the message YOU LOSE. Should you offer big money to the remaining ticketholder to exchange tickets with you?

That isn't the Monty Hall problem. The Monty Hall problem would arise if there were 10,000 tickets (including one winning ticket), and you choose one, and then I take the 9,999 other tickets and (because I know which tickets are winners and which are not) reveal to you 9,998 of the 9,998 or 9,999 non-winning tickets of that group, and then offer you the chance to change. The Monty Hall problem arises where I "hide" the fact that you are being offered a choice between 1 ticket or 9,999 tickets, by revealing something which is obviously true i.e. that at least 9,998 of the 9,999 tickets are not winners. It operates entirely because I know which tickets are winners, but you do not.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 7:55 AM on June 14, 2011

My Lords, I have now had the chance to read the judgment of my noble sibling muddgirl and I agree entirely with its conclusions - although 'sup with all the mud, my Lordizzles? Lord Justice quidnunc out.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 7:57 AM on June 14, 2011

mudd with two d's. Also I cribbed it all from Wikipedia.
posted by muddgirl at 8:02 AM on June 14, 2011

I'm a bit dubious about how much we can apply studies like the one by Nyhan and Reifler cited in the article to real life. Sure, cognitive biases exist, and people are reluctant to change their minds when presented with information contradicting what they think is true, but I think studies like this one exaggerate this effect simply because they're psych experiments.

Let's say I'm participating in psychological study. I'm asked to fill out a questionnaire about my political leanings and beliefs, presented with some information about a topic, and then asked about my reactions to it. If the information I'm given contradicts what I believe to be true, I have no way during the experiment to check or verify the information, and I'm going to assume that it's just something the psychologists made up or selected on purpose just to see how I would react to it. It's a psych experiment after all. (And this, of course, exactly what they're doing, even the selected information happens to be true.) In deciding whether to take the information seriously or not, I'm probably going rehearse what I already know about the topic and compare that to the information given, and this may have the effect of apparently strengthening my beliefs about it.

(In other words I think the "backfiring" might be simply an effect of rehearsal of your own beliefs necessary to evaluate the information. Has anybody checked this?)

I real life, people can and sometimes do check information they encounter. If somebody on the internet on in conversation tells me something I know is false, or is different from what I remember or believe to be the case, I'm going to discount it. However if I run into the information repeatedly, I might check it and see where it comes from. I might double check my own information. If the contradictory information seems to actually be reliable and mine doesn't, I might actually realize I was wrong and change my mind about it.

This can of course take a while. You can't expect people to change their minds on a single exposure to bit of contradictory information. And different people have different strategies and rules of thumb they use for evaluating information and sources. And whether a person does any evaluation at all depends on whether they take the information, or the initial source, seriously enough to bother.
posted by nangar at 8:05 AM on June 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

My Lords, I have read the noble and learned comment regarding the double "d" of my sibling Baroness muddgirl of Strathclyde, and I accept without hesitation her fulsome explication of this matter.

Honi soit qui mal y pense, my Lords, and should your Lordships seek to dissent on this matter, I beg that you allow me to pop a mike like a vandool. q-ice baby. Lord Justice q-ice baby. Appeal upheld.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 8:12 AM on June 14, 2011 [2 favorites]

I disagree with the concept that criticisms stick with you because they are in conflict with someone's own worldview whilst praise sneaks through unnoticed as an unremarked accord. Speaking purely for myself - although I strongly suspect this is not an uncommon viewpoint among the depressed - the criticism is the viewpoint that most closely matches my own. It gets ruminated upon and obsessed about purely because it agrees with the off-kilter internal beliefs, and becomes "yet more evidence" for whatever self-defeating idea is in the ascendancy. That's the exact opposite of what the "backfire effect" is meant to produce. What gives?
posted by talitha_kumi at 8:15 AM on June 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

the criticism is the viewpoint that most closely matches my own

Well I think we can both agree that you are a horrible person who molests badgers, and therefore your views can be ignored, which conclusion implies that you are a wonderful person who hugs tapirs. So the point is that we should all agree with your comment, which leads us to agree that you are a disgusting person who vandalises centipedes. I could go on and on and on and on and on and I usually do.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 8:19 AM on June 14, 2011 [5 favorites]

Reading the few examples of the Monty Hall problem presented in this thread is not helping me understand its purpose. So, taking a leaf out of Mr Visible's three-page book, I admit that I don't know what the Monty Hall problem is, nor what it is meant to demonstrate/prove. Could someone explain both the purpose and the "answer" (I think I understand that there ultimately is no answer, or that the answer is "it doesn't matter")?
posted by tzikeh at 8:46 AM on June 14, 2011

tzikeh - I linked to a very (IMO) clear Wikipedia article which explains the problem and why it is so famous. There are sort of two things going on:

(1) The answer to the problem very closely depends on how it is set up.
(2) The standard formulation, given clearly and explicitely as

Suppose you're on a game show and you're given the choice of three doors [and will win what is behind the chosen door]. Behind one door is a car; behind the others, goats [unwanted booby prizes]. The car and the goats were placed randomly behind the doors before the show. The rules of the game show are as follows: After you have chosen a door, the door remains closed for the time being. The game show host, Monty Hall, who knows what is behind the doors, now has to open one of the two remaining doors, and the door he opens must have a goat behind it. If both remaining doors have goats behind them, he chooses one [uniformly] at random. After Monty Hall opens a door with a goat, he will ask you to decide whether you want to stay with your first choice or to switch to the last remaining door. Imagine that you chose Door 1 and the host opens Door 3, which has a goat. He then asks you "Do you want to switch to Door Number 2?" Is it to your advantage to change your choice?

has a non-intuitive answer.
posted by muddgirl at 8:54 AM on June 14, 2011

Reading the few examples of the Monty Hall problem presented in this thread is not helping me understand its purpose.

Just a quick note about "purpose"- the Monty Hall problem (unlike, say, the well-known dilemmas of game theory) is not ordinarily taken to have any sort of larger "significance", or to say anything about how anyone might or should act in their lives. It's a math problem with a counterintuitive answer, that's all.
posted by Jpfed at 9:01 AM on June 14, 2011

The Monty Hall problem is the apparent paradox whereby a simple, provable theorum in a formal mathematical system becomes unprovable, inconsistent and irritating on the comments section of a blog. There are a few explanations of how this happens, most involve infinite dimensional stupidity and the group theory of torrid toroids. The Monty Hall problem can be avoided by exchaging the thread you are now commenting on for a different thread offered. In that other thread, you have a 66.6% greater chance of being called a Nazi by someone, but it's worth it, because you can just tell that person to fuck off.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 9:02 AM on June 14, 2011 [4 favorites]

Michael Shermer wrote an interesting article in 2006 in Scientific American called The Political Brain. Shermer refers to this as "...the confirmation bias, whereby we seek and find confirmatory evidence in support of already existing beliefs and ignore or reinterpret disconfirmatory evidence." Shermer's solution is skepticism.

The Political Brain article references a study lead by Drew Westen, who also wrote a book in 2007 of the same name, with the solution of "You can't change the structure of the brain. But you can change the way you appeal to it."

In 2007 - with an election looming in the following year - an op-ed article utilizing data from fMRI scans appeared in the NYTimes called This is Your Brain on Politics.

Via The Dana Foundation, Dr. Geoffrey Aguirre counters the NYTimes article in 2008, explaining the limitations of using brain scans to determine voter behaviors.
posted by cristinacristinacristina at 9:20 AM on June 14, 2011

I am completely unaffected by cognitive bias. Ask me anything.

Surely this a Panel 2 quote from Dinosaur Comics?
posted by straight at 9:25 AM on June 14, 2011 [3 favorites]

Well I think we can both agree that you are a horrible person who molests badgers

I seem to have mislaid my spoon. The badger poking might have to wait.

(i have new socks, though)
posted by talitha_kumi at 11:33 AM on June 14, 2011

And you're a skellington.
posted by talitha_kumi at 11:40 AM on June 14, 2011

The Backfire Effect

You're all talking bollocks. The answer here is simple. Curry (Madras or Vindaloo - no fancy stuff). Or, if you're a bit of a ponce, chilli. Add several pints of sour lager. Mix well and allow to digest for a few hours: abracaskidmarks, you have a bona fide, make-yer-eyes-water ring-stinger. AKA The Backfire Effect. Any more questions youse need answering?
posted by MajorDundee at 12:20 PM on June 14, 2011

And you're a skellington.

Spoken like a person who tantalizes otters. I'd prove to you the error of your ways, but according to the "Backfire Effect", that would only lead to a WHOLE lot more otter tantalizing. Lucky otters.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 12:59 PM on June 14, 2011 [1 favorite]

Two things that may or may not have relevance......

I sold Raw Milk at Farmer's Markets for many years. I was raised on a dairy farm. In the foodie world raw vs. pasteurized is a hot button.

My post to the thread explains where I am coming from. What I did not say was that after about a year of giving a pitch I realized that my experience was my own view. From then on out, when someone asked me about raw milk I would preface it by "First off, I am biased. I was raised on a dairy farm." That worked well and whether they purchased the product or not most appreciated the honesty and sincerity.

Also, I wonder if an underlying issue here is power/powerlessness. My theory is that men will act on "I love you, I love you, I love you" in order to get what they want (power). When that doesn't happen then it's, "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you" in order to get the same thing. When that doesn't happen then the cycle is repeated with a new person/ideology/etc. I have spoken with a female friend and she feels that most women do a similar pattern. Seeing how ones behavior is used as a means for wanting "power" seems to be the key in breaking the cycle.
posted by goalyeehah at 3:29 PM on June 14, 2011

the quidnunc kid: "Here's my way of convincing people of their errors: first, chop them up with an axe, then feast on their sweet, gooey brain-matter. Then get high on peyote and vomit it up, and sculpt the resulting sick into a homunculoid version of aforementioned recalcitrant. Feed the creature on fell meats and instruct it in a dark, half-forgotten language until it is cunning enough to whisper to you the occult secrets of limitless power, and after rubbing your naked body with the fat of a slaughtered infant, take to their air on your demonic wings and fly, fly-wait a second that's actually my foolproof method for becoming Governor of Idaho. Uhh ... lemme get back to y'all on this."

Stupid know it all noobs will get people killed.

That's the fat of a slaughtered unshrivened infant. The lesson continues.

Unshrivened is unchristened. Use a christened child's fat, all you end up with is an interestingly shaped splatter below the nearest cliff.

Besides, unchristened infant souls are the tastiest. Do your research next time before you go off shooting your mouth off like the Prince of Darkness or something.
posted by Samizdata at 2:00 AM on June 15, 2011

The Backfire Effect reminds me of the story Chaff by Greg Egan.
posted by asok at 8:49 AM on June 15, 2011