An article in the Huffington Post points to an interesting and very readable publication in the journal Political Behavior: When Corrections Fail: The persistence of political misperceptions by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler. It’s also the subject of a good article in the Boston Globe.
Appropriately, Nyhan and Reifler begin with the timeless maxim of Mark Twain
It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
The article documents not just the resistence of people to information that contradicts their established views but to their views being strengthened — in a “backfire effect”. Joe Keohane, writing in the Globe, likens the effect to that of a weak antibiotic, and notes the gloomy indications for democracy.
It’s easy to suck one’s teeth about the stupidity of people who are impervious to doubt and to revising their views, so it was salutory to see in Keohane’s report that this phenomenon is not confined merely to the uninformed. Even some of the best informed, those who are 90% right on factual matters, can be absolutely resistant to correction (i.e., changing their views) on the 10% on which they are wrong.
So much for
When the facts change, I change my mind — What do you do Sir?
– J. M. Keynes when accused of being inconsistent in his views.
