Talk:Backfire effect

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Editorial notes Needs moar.

Seems to be overstated

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2819073

Exploiting the backfire effect

Any historical examples of someone using deliberately using the backfire effect against an opponent (people do this to their allies all of the time) for military or political gain? It seems such an entrenched human reaction that it's basically an 'I Win!' button if you want your opponent to hold onto erroneous or harmful views and beliefs when they would otherwise be at risk for abandoning or moderating them on their own. The closest I can think of is the American Civil Rights movement, but not even I am cynical enough to think that the leaders intentionally wanted bombings and murders. Dr. Swordopolis (talk) 02:57, 28 June 2012 (UTC)

It's Jim not joe Clark ^{— Unsigned, by: 24.18.44.154 / talk / contribs}

"Bre'r-Rabbit Style"

I'm not sure that illustrating Dr. King's use of this effect with an illusion to Joel Chandler Harris is the best idea. As much as I do enjoy the Bre'r Rabbit stories, it's hard to deny that they do have strong racial overtones.^{— Unsigned, by: Aristos achaion / talk / contribs}

I'm now more convinced than ever

that this effect doesn't exist Scherben (talk) 04:33, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

I see what you did there. ^gnostic 17:26, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

I vehemently disagree. - Grant (Talk) 17:33, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Notes on the “general improved Socratic method”

I created this method after a lot of research and thinking. If you see any glaring errors, please 1. feel free to correct them, but 2. do not do so lightly! Because: Sometimes when you go deeper, first you move from view A to view B, and after a lot more thinking, you might end up at view A again anyway. This will look stupid to anyone who is still only at view B. Please resist that urge, until you have made extra-sure. Otherwise valuable work might get lost.

Textually, the whole thing is still rough. It probably should get its own article or move to a more general article of something. If you make extra-sure you don’t alter any of the meanings, feel free to clean it up or move it however you like. :)

— 87.79.222.114 (talk) 03:56, 4 October 2016 (UTC) (Navid Zamani, Köln, DE) [I generally never create accounts in a wiki, and boycott wikis that force registration.]

Maybe another source

http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

How else to fight the Backfire effect?

In the "How to fight it" section, one of the bullet points suggests waiting for the flames to die down, saying "A large portion of the backfire effect stems from people not wanting to be seen as wrong or stupid in front of an audience."

I would like to additionally suggest that getting out from in front of the audience can be an effective tactic for avoiding this kind of defensiveness in a public forum. I've personally had better results discussing potentially flammable points with people by taking the discussion to a direct message conversation. People tend to be more amenable to reason when they don't feel like they are being told they are wrong in public. Jrbedford (talk) 19:32, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

can we update this article for the research in the last year?

Nyhan himself has publicly stated that he can't replicate the effect. for instance:

Here's an interview from July where he seems to admit he doesn't believe the effect

here's a Nyhan and Reifler paper where they fail to find a backfire effect.)

On talk pages, please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: on the toolbar above the edit panel. You can also indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line. Thank you. Sure, you do know that you can update it yourself? A wiki is wiki. Free to edit. ClickerClock (talk) 03:17, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

...I just don't know how we'd do that in good faith--the current research indicates there is no backfire effect (at least, Nyhan no longer believes in it.) Are you really ok with rewriting to reflect this? ^{— Unsigned, by: 173.239.223.4 / talk / contribs}

Sure. Rewrite to better reflect current research. ClickerClock (talk) 08:24, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

@ClickerClock, I've updated the beginning of this page. Have a look & edit if you like. I'll do some more work on it later. Bongolian (talk) 21:34, 6 February 2019 (UTC)

Has any evidence supporting the existence of the Backfire Effect come out lately or should the article be entirely rewritten to reflect that it's been debunked? Glitch (talk) 03:40, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't know if it should be entirely rewritten, but you should add a section summarizing that new research that seems to contradict what we know about the backfire effect. --It's-a me, 🎄LeftyGreenMario!🎄 03:43, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

The first section has plenty of references to that fact, including that it's pretty much been disclaimed by its "discoverer". It's just that then the page continues on to talk about how important it is and how to fight it, which is... Confusing. Glitch (talk) 04:35, 27 July 2020 (UTC)