Researchers: Facts only make people believe lies harder

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Quote :

In the end, truth will out. Won’t it?

Maybe not. Recently, a few political
scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging
to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t
necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the
opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the
University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly
political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories,
they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more
strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing
misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually
make misinformation even stronger.

In other words, there is no hope for the political discourse of the United States. People will keep being dumb, forever.

Quote :

These findings open a long-running argument about the political
ignorance of American citizens to broader questions about the interplay
between the nature of human intelligence and our democratic ideals. Most
of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by
careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the
decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness
and intelligence. In reality, we often base our opinions on our beliefs,
which can have an uneasy relationship with facts. And rather than facts
driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept.
They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our
preconceived notions. Worst of all, they can lead us to uncritically
accept bad information just because it reinforces our beliefs. This
reinforcement makes us more confident we’re right, and even less likely
to listen to any new information. And then we vote.

FOXNewsExplained.txt

Quote :

“Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be,”
read a recent Onion headline. Like the best satire, this nasty little
gem elicits a laugh, which is then promptly muffled by the queasy
feeling of recognition. The last five decades of political science have
definitively established that most modern-day Americans lack even a
basic understanding of how their country works. In 1996, Princeton
University’s Larry M. Bartels argued, “the political ignorance of the
American voter is one of the best documented data in political science.”

Basically just quoting this part so I can link to the Onion article.

Quote :

On its own, this might not be a problem: People ignorant of the facts
could simply choose not to vote. But instead, it appears that
misinformed people often have some of the strongest political opinions. A
striking recent example was a study done in the year 2000, led by James
Kuklinski of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He led an
influential experiment in which more than 1,000 Illinois residents were
asked questions about welfare — the percentage of the federal budget
spent on welfare, the number of people enrolled in the program, the
percentage of enrollees who are black, and the average payout. More than
half indicated that they were confident that their answers were correct
— but in fact only 3 percent of the people got more than half of the
questions right. Perhaps more disturbingly, the ones who were the most
confident they were right were by and large the ones who knew the
least about the topic. (Most of these participants expressed views that
suggested a strong antiwelfare bias.)

Hm? That last bit... it almost sounds like conservatives are more susceptible to this behavior than liberals...

Quote :

In 2005, amid the strident calls for
better media fact-checking in the wake of the Iraq war, Michigan’s Nyhan
and a colleague devised an experiment in which participants were given
mock news stories, each of which contained a provably false, though
nonetheless widespread, claim made by a political figure: that there
were WMDs found in Iraq (there weren’t), that the Bush tax cuts
increased government revenues (revenues actually fell), and that the
Bush administration imposed a total ban on stem cell research (only
certain federal funding was restricted). Nyhan inserted a clear, direct
correction after each piece of misinformation, and then measured the
study participants to see if the correction took.

For the most part, it didn’t. The
participants who self-identified as conservative believed the
misinformation on WMD and taxes even more strongly after being
given the correction. With those two issues, the more strongly the
participant cared about the topic — a factor known as salience — the
stronger the backfire. The effect was slightly different on
self-identified liberals: When they read corrected stories about stem
cells, the corrections didn’t backfire, but the readers did still ignore
the inconvenient fact that the Bush administration’s restrictions
weren’t total.

Caaaaaaalled it.

Quote :

And if you harbor the notion — popular on both sides of the aisle — that
the solution is more education and a higher level of political
sophistication in voters overall, well, that’s a start, but not the
solution. A 2006 study by Charles Taber and Milton Lodge at Stony Brook
University showed that politically sophisticated thinkers were even less
open to new information than less sophisticated types. These people may
be factually right about 90 percent of things, but their confidence
makes it nearly impossible to correct the 10 percent on which they’re
totally wrong. Taber and Lodge found this alarming, because engaged,
sophisticated thinkers are “the very folks on whom democratic theory
relies most heavily.”

So not even increasing the education level of the populace will improve things? What can possible be done? Is there any hope at all?

Quote :

Nyhan ultimately recommends a supply-side approach. Instead of focusing
on citizens and consumers of misinformation, he suggests looking at the
sources. If you increase the “reputational costs” of peddling bad info,
he suggests, you might discourage people from doing it so often. “So if
you go on ‘Meet the Press’ and you get hammered for saying something
misleading,” he says, “you’d think twice before you go and do it again.”

welp
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"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." - Joseph Goebbels.

Honestly, it took research to prove this? Five minutes on any political website could have told you the same thing. I'm amazed at the amount of earnestly-held beliefs about just about anything that are utter bunk.

Can we get another "not news" tag for this?

The truth is just an excuse for a lack of imagination.

And there goes the last lingering thread of my faith in human collective intelligence.

Quote :

In fact, quite the
opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the
University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly
political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories,
they rarely changed their minds.

Thereby explaining the continued existence of the Democratic party. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Thereby explaining the continued existence of the Democratic Republican party. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Fixed that for ya.

Spotts1701 wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Thereby explaining the continued existence of the Democratic Republican party. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Fixed that for ya.

Mikey trolled Spotts. Quoted for posterity.

Spotts1701 wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Thereby explaining the continued existence of the Democratic Republican party. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Fixed that for ya.

TRAP SPRUNG

TheHermit wrote:

Spotts1701 wrote:

Mikey Go WOOGA wrote:

Thereby explaining the continued existence of the Democratic Republican party. [You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]

Fixed that for ya.

TRAP SPRUNG

S'okay, I've got thieves tools. +2 to Disable Device.

Spotts1701 wrote:

TheHermit wrote:

TRAP SPRUNG

S'okay, I've got thieves tools. +2 to Disable Device.

Too late, the traps been sprung. Either the trap rolls an 18 against your AC or you'll have to make a Reflex (15) save depending on your taste in games.

Spoiler:

Majin Gojira wrote:

And there goes the last lingering thread of my faith in human collective intelligence.

Collective intelligence is an oxymoron anyway.

Formula:

Jay/Cris wrote:

Majin Gojira wrote:

And there goes the last lingering thread of my faith in human collective intelligence.

Collective intelligence is an oxymoron anyway.

Formula:

(IQ of mob) =

(amount of people in mob)
(the IQ of the person with the least amount of intelligence in said mob)

Beat me to it.

Penguin wrote:

Jay/Cris wrote:

Majin Gojira wrote:

And there goes the last lingering thread of my faith in human collective intelligence.

Collective intelligence is an oxymoron anyway.

Formula:

(IQ of mob) =

(amount of people in mob)
(the IQ of the person with the least amount of intelligence in said mob)

Beat me to it.

There's something wrong with the formula. If the dumbest person in the mob has an IQ next to zero, the IQ of the mob becomes infinitely high.

I know exactly how to solve this problem.

*takes out rapid-fire machine gun and lines up all the idiots in America, then shoots out their genitals*

Whoops! Now there's no Americans left!

Except the ones who come to this board.

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

I know exactly how to solve this problem.

*takes out rapid-fire machine gun and lines up all the idiots in America, then shoots out their genitals*

Whoops! Now there's no Americans left!

Except the ones who come to this board.

Harley, dear, considering the fine folks from the BNP and the readership of various rags such as the Daily Fail, I'd say these findings don't only apply here.

Hn- I'd always heard that as "Dogbert's Rule of Meetings." "The IQ of a group is equal to 100 minus five for each person above two."

The Unoriginal wrote:

Penguin wrote:

Jay/Cris wrote:

Majin Gojira wrote:

And there goes the last lingering thread of my faith in human collective intelligence.

Collective intelligence is an oxymoron anyway.

Formula:

(IQ of mob) =

(amount of people in mob)
(the IQ of the person with the least amount of intelligence in said mob)

Beat me to it.

There's something wrong with the formula. If the dumbest person in the mob has an IQ next to zero, the IQ of the mob becomes infinitely high.

The fraction should be flipped over.

Miss Prince wrote:

The Unoriginal wrote:

Penguin wrote:

Jay/Cris wrote:

Majin Gojira wrote:

And there goes the last lingering thread of my faith in human collective intelligence.

Collective intelligence is an oxymoron anyway.

Formula:

(IQ of mob) =

(amount of people in mob)
(the IQ of the person with the least amount of intelligence in said mob)

Beat me to it.

There's something wrong with the formula. If the dumbest person in the mob has an IQ next to zero, the IQ of the mob becomes infinitely high.

The fraction should be flipped over.

Yeah. It should.

Saleha wrote:

Harley Quinn hyenaholic wrote:

I know exactly how to solve this problem.

*takes out rapid-fire machine gun and lines up all the idiots in America, then shoots out their genitals*

Whoops! Now there's no Americans left!

Except the ones who come to this board.

Harley, dear, considering the fine folks from the BNP and the readership of various rags such as the Daily Fail, I'd say these findings don't only apply here.

Hmmm... good point.

I know! Tell them lies all the time! That'll bolster their belief in the facts!

Part of the problem is that politically controversial topics were chosen, although I imagine it'd be hard to test belief vs. fact otherwise. From the blurb:

Quote :

In 2005, amid the strident calls for better media fact-checking in
the wake of the Iraq war, Michigan’s Nyhan and a colleague devised
an experiment in which participants were given mock news stories,
each of which contained a provably false, though nonetheless
widespread, claim made by a political figure: that there were WMDs
found in Iraq (there weren’t), that the Bush tax cuts increased
government revenues (revenues actually fell), and that the Bush
administration imposed a total ban on stem cell research (only certain
federal funding was restricted). Nyhan inserted a clear, direct correction
after each piece of misinformation, and then measured the study
participants to see if the correction took.

Given that a popular conservative belief basically says that the mainstream media is a liberal propaganda outlet, many of those people probably thought that the corrections were meant to mislead them, push-poll style.

Penguin wrote:

Part of the problem is that politically controversial topics were chosen, although I imagine it'd be hard to test belief vs. fact otherwise. From the blurb:

Quote :

In 2005, amid the strident calls for better media fact-checking in
the wake of the Iraq war, Michigan’s Nyhan and a colleague devised
an experiment in which participants were given mock news stories,
each of which contained a provably false, though nonetheless
widespread, claim made by a political figure: that there were WMDs
found in Iraq (there weren’t), that the Bush tax cuts increased
government revenues (revenues actually fell), and that the Bush
administration imposed a total ban on stem cell research (only certain
federal funding was restricted). Nyhan inserted a clear, direct correction
after each piece of misinformation, and then measured the study
participants to see if the correction took.

Given that a popular conservative belief basically says that the mainstream media is a liberal propaganda outlet, many of those people probably thought that the corrections were meant to mislead them, push-poll style.

Correlation, or causation? Even I'm not sure. Since the US mainstream media is not, in fact, liberal, I'm also uncertain this observation does much to damage the hypothesis.

TheHermit wrote:

Penguin wrote:

Part of the problem is that politically controversial topics were chosen, although I imagine it'd be hard to test belief vs. fact otherwise. From the blurb:

Quote :

In 2005, amid the strident calls for better media fact-checking in
the wake of the Iraq war, Michigan’s Nyhan and a colleague devised
an experiment in which participants were given mock news stories,
each of which contained a provably false, though nonetheless
widespread, claim made by a political figure: that there were WMDs
found in Iraq (there weren’t), that the Bush tax cuts increased
government revenues (revenues actually fell), and that the Bush
administration imposed a total ban on stem cell research (only certain
federal funding was restricted). Nyhan inserted a clear, direct correction
after each piece of misinformation, and then measured the study
participants to see if the correction took.

Given that a popular conservative belief basically says that the mainstream media is a liberal propaganda outlet, many of those people probably thought that the corrections were meant to mislead them, push-poll style.

Correlation, or causation? Even I'm not sure. Since the US mainstream media is not, in fact, liberal, I'm also uncertain this observation does much to damage the hypothesis.

It makes me wonder whether, if the facts were given by a source the person trusts, they would be more likely to believe them. For example, would conservatives be more willing to believe facts if they came from Fox News?

Lady Anne wrote:

It makes me wonder whether, if the facts were given by a source the person trusts, they would be more likely to believe them. For example, would conservatives be more willing to believe facts if they came from Fox News?

I must kill FOX News, thereby becoming FOX News...

Seriously though, this might be an interesting angle.