Hmm. This looks at 7 studies and says the backfire effect (when showing people contrary facts makes them believe more strongly) does not exist and that fact checking works.
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I suspect most of the time we think this is going on, people are just saving face in the moment and will look for ways to unwind investment in the falsified belief later. Knowing you’re wrong and admitting it to a particular person in a particular situation are different things.
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Though I suspect when people have descended into full-blown true believer mass movement core, some version of genuine backfire effect does hold. Dunno if any of the 7 negative studies in this report looked at cult-like epistemic situations. Someone read the full report and share.
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