Within Backfire
Did Researchers Actually Find Backfire?
Large experiments and reviews suggest factual corrections usually improve accuracy and that true backfire is rare.
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- The early studies that popularised the fear
- Large experiments that tested expected backfire
- What reviews now say about rare backfire claims
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Introduction
The most important finding from the last decade of misinformation research is surprisingly simple: factual corrections usually help. The famous idea that corrections routinely backfire and make people believe falsehoods more strongly became influential after a handful of early political studies, but larger and more systematic tests have generally failed to reproduce that pattern. Instead, researchers repeatedly find that corrections move beliefs in the right direction, even on polarising political topics. True backfire effects can occur in isolated cases, but they appear to be rare rather than typical.[SSRN]papers.ssrn.comThe Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes' Steadfast…by T Wood 2017 Cited by 1163 The present paper presents results from… ScienceDirect This shift matters because the fear of backfire affected how journalists[sciencedirect.com]sciencedirect.comSearching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design…by B Swire-Thompson 2020 Cited by 418 In sum, the current…, fact-checkers, public-health officials and educators approached misinformation. If corrections usually improve factual accuracy rather than worsen it, then the practical challenge is not whether to correct false claims, but how to make corrections clear, credible and memorable.
Did the Original Backfire Findings Hold Up?
The backfire effect entered public debate largely through Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reiflers 2010 paper on political misperceptions. In several experiments involving contentious US political issues, they found examples where corrections failed to reduce false beliefs and a smaller number of cases where some participants appeared to become even more committed to the misconception after seeing a correction.[ePrints Soton]eprints.soton.ac.ukePrints SotonWhen corrections fail: the persistence of political misperceptionsby B Nyhan 2010 Cited by 4638 We also document sever…
Those findings were striking because they suggested something stronger than ordinary persuasion failure. A failed correction simply leaves beliefs unchanged. A backfire effect means the correction itself pushes people further in the wrong direction.
The study quickly became influential because it seemed to explain everyday experiences of political argument. Many people recognised the feeling that presenting evidence to a committed partisan often appeared ineffective. The backfire explanation offered a memorable psychological account: people might defend identity-linked beliefs so strongly that contradictory evidence actually strengthened them.[ePrints Soton]eprints.soton.ac.ukePrints SotonWhen corrections fail: the persistence of political misperceptionsby B Nyhan 2010 Cited by 4638 We also document sever…
The problem for the theory was that later researchers repeatedly struggled to find the same result.
The 10,100-Person Test That Changed the Debate
The most influential challenge to the backfire story came from Thomas Wood and Ethan Porter. Rather than testing a few politically sensitive claims, they conducted five large experiments involving more than 10,100 participants and 52 different factual issues where ideological resistance was expected. Topics ranged across partisan and politically charged subjects, precisely the situations where backfire should have been easiest to detect.[SSRN]papers.ssrn.comThe Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes' Steadfast…by T Wood 2017 Cited by 1163 The present paper presents results from…
Their conclusion was blunt: they did not observe a single instance of factual backfire across the studies. Participants often resisted complete persuasion, and corrections did not always produce large changes, but the direction of change was generally toward greater factual accuracy rather than greater error.[SSRN]papers.ssrn.comThe Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes' Steadfast…by T Wood 2017 Cited by 1163 The present paper presents results from…
What made the study influential was not merely its size. The researchers deliberately looked for the conditions that earlier theories suggested would generate backlash:
- Strong partisan identities.
- Politically contentious topics.
- Corrections that challenged ideological commitments.[daily.jstor.org]daily.jstor.orgthe backfire effectJSTOR DailyThe Backfire Effect3 Apr 2017 Nyhan and Reifler found that corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the t…
- Different experimental formats and survey populations.
Even under those conditions, the expected pattern largely failed to appear. The researchers concluded that citizens were generally more responsive to factual information than the backfire narrative implied.[SSRN]papers.ssrn.comThe Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes' Steadfast…by T Wood 2017 Cited by 1163 The present paper presents results from…
This did not mean people suddenly became perfectly informed. Many retained some mistaken beliefs, and some corrections had modest effects. But the central predictionthat corrections commonly increase belief in misinformationreceived little support.[SSRN]papers.ssrn.comThe Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes' Steadfast…by T Wood 2017 Cited by 1163 The present paper presents results from…
What Researchers Found Instead of Backfire
As larger correction studies accumulated, a different picture emerged.
The most common outcome was straightforward belief updating. When participants received credible corrective information, their factual beliefs usually moved toward the evidence. The shift was often incomplete, but it was rarely negative.[SSRN]papers.ssrn.comThe Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes' Steadfast…by T Wood 2017 Cited by 1163 The present paper presents results from… ScienceDirect Researchers also found several phenomena that can be mistaken for backfire:[sciencedirect.com]sciencedirect.comSearching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design…by B Swire-Thompson 2020 Cited by 418 In sum, the current…
Corrections that fade over time. People may initially accept a correction but later forget it or become re-exposed to the false claim. The correction’s influence weakens, but that is different from becoming more convinced of the myth.[PNAS]pnas.orgWhy the backfire effect does not explain the durability of…by B Nyhan 2021 Cited by 325 In 2010, Jason Reifler and I publish…
Corrections that improve facts but not attitudes. Someone may acknowledge a factual correction while maintaining a political preference or emotional commitment. Observers can interpret this as rejection of evidence even when factual beliefs have shifted somewhat.[PNAS]pnas.orgWhy the backfire effect does not explain the durability of…by B Nyhan 2021 Cited by 325 In 2010, Jason Reifler and I publish…
Corrections overwhelmed by elite cues. Political leaders, media figures or social networks may repeatedly reinforce misinformation. In such cases, corrections struggle to compete with a continuing stream of contrary messages. Again, this is not necessarily backfire; it is a problem of information environments and repetition.[PNAS]pnas.orgWhy the backfire effect does not explain the durability of…by B Nyhan 2021 Cited by 325 In 2010, Jason Reifler and I publish…
These findings redirected attention away from the question Do corrections make things worse? toward more practical questions about durability, trust and message design.
Reviews of the Evidence Found Backfire to Be Rare
As the literature expanded, review papers began examining the evidence across multiple studies rather than focusing on individual experiments.
One influential review by Briony Swire-Thompson, Joseph DeGutis and David Lazer evaluated research on both worldview backfire and familiarity backfire effects. The authors concluded that backfire effects were not a robust empirical phenomenon. They argued that many earlier claims rested on measurement difficulties, underpowered studies or findings that proved difficult to reproduce.[ScienceDirect]sciencedirect.comSearching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design…by B Swire-Thompson 2020 Cited by 418 In sum, the current…[OSF]osf.iot backfire effects are not a robust empirical phenomenon, and more reliable measures, powerful designs, and stronger…Read…
The review also highlighted a common confusion involving familiarity. Communicators worried that repeating a myth during a correction would increase its familiarity and therefore its believability. While familiarity can influence perceived truth, large bodies of correction research have generally failed to show that standard myth-versus-fact corrections reliably produce net increases in false belief.[ScienceDirect]sciencedirect.comSearching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design…by B Swire-Thompson 2020 Cited by 418 In sum, the current…
Subsequent replication work reached similar conclusions. Studies specifically designed to detect familiarity-driven backfire often failed to reproduce the effect, even when researchers tested delayed recall and different correction formats.[Springer Link]link.springer.comSpringer LinkExamining the replicability of backfire effects after standalone…by T Prike 2023 Cited by 25 Here, we examined whet…
The result is a notable reversal in the field. Researchers now often treat backfire as a phenomenon that requires special explanation when it appears, rather than something expected to occur whenever misinformation is corrected.[ScienceDirect]sciencedirect.comSearching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design…by B Swire-Thompson 2020 Cited by 418 In sum, the current…
Why Rare Backfire Cases Still Attract Attention
Despite the broader evidence, occasional reports of backfire continue to appear.
Part of the reason is that a genuine backfire effect is psychologically interesting. A finding that people become more mistaken after receiving corrective evidence is more surprising than a finding that corrections work modestly. As a result, early examples received disproportionate attention.[ePrints Soton]eprints.soton.ac.ukePrints SotonWhen corrections fail: the persistence of political misperceptionsby B Nyhan 2010 Cited by 4638 We also document sever…
Another reason is that rare individual-level reversals can occur even when there is no group-level backfire. In a large sample, some participants will move in the wrong direction for idiosyncratic reasons. The key question is whether those movements are systematic and large enough to outweigh the people who update accurately. Most large studies suggest they are not.[ScienceDirect]sciencedirect.comSearching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design…by B Swire-Thompson 2020 Cited by 418 In sum, the current…
Researchers also note that isolated backfire findings are often sensitive to measurement choices. Depending on how belief change is calculated, a small apparent reversal can sometimes emerge from statistical noise, ceiling effects or unreliable survey responses. This is one reason later reviews placed so much emphasis on replication and experimental design.[ScienceDirect]sciencedirect.comSearching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design…by B Swire-Thompson 2020 Cited by 418 In sum, the current…
What the Evidence Now Suggests
The broad lesson from large correction studies is not that misinformation is easy to defeat. False beliefs can persist, corrections can decay, and political identities still shape how evidence is received. Yet these problems are different from the classic backfire claim.[PNAS]pnas.orgWhy the backfire effect does not explain the durability of…by B Nyhan 2021 Cited by 325 In 2010, Jason Reifler and I publish…
The strongest large-scale evidence points in a more reassuring direction. When researchers deliberately tested situations where backfire was expected, corrections generally improved factual accuracy. Reviews of the literature now describe robust backfire effects as uncommon and difficult to reproduce.[SSRN]papers.ssrn.comThe Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes' Steadfast…by T Wood 2017 Cited by 1163 The present paper presents results from… ScienceDirect That shift has changed how many scholars think about misinformation. The central concern is no longer that corrections typically make false b[sciencedirect.com]sciencedirect.comSearching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design…by B Swire-Thompson 2020 Cited by 418 In sum, the current… eliefs stronger. It is that corrections often produce only partial gains, compete with repeated misinformation, and must be designed well enough to remain memorable and trusted.[PNAS]pnas.orgWhy the backfire effect does not explain the durability of…by B Nyhan 2021 Cited by 325 In 2010, Jason Reifler and I publish…
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Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me) Third Edition
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Endnotes
1.
Source: papers.ssrn.com
Link:https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2819073
Source snippet
The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes' Steadfast...by T Wood 2017 Cited by 1163 The present paper presents results from...
2.
Source: sciencedirect.com
Link:https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211368120300516
Source snippet
Searching for the Backfire Effect: Measurement and Design...by B Swire-Thompson 2020 Cited by 418 In sum, the current...
3.
Source: pnas.org
Link:https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1912440117
Source snippet
Why the backfire effect does not explain the durability of...by B Nyhan 2021 Cited by 325 In 2010, Jason Reifler and I publish...
4.
Source: osf.io
Link:https://osf.io/download/ba2kc
Source snippet
t backfire effects are not a robust empirical phenomenon, and more reliable measures, powerful designs, and stronger...Read...
5.
Source: link.springer.com
Link:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s41235-023-00492-z
Source snippet
Springer LinkExamining the replicability of backfire effects after standalone...by T Prike 2023 Cited by 25 Here, we examined whet...
6.
Source: eprints.soton.ac.uk
Link:https://eprints.soton.ac.uk/500567/
Source snippet
ePrints SotonWhen corrections fail: the persistence of political misperceptionsby B Nyhan 2010 Cited by 4638 We also document sever...
7.
Source: daily.jstor.org
Title: the backfire effect
Link:https://daily.jstor.org/the-backfire-effect/
Source snippet
JSTOR DailyThe Backfire Effect3 Apr 2017 Nyhan and Reifler found that corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the t...
8.
Source: cjr.org
Title: the backfire effect
Link:https://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/the_backfire_effect.php
Source snippet
17 Jun 2011 The study was led by Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, two leading researchers examining political misinformation and the wa...
Additional References
9.
Source: nationalacademies.org
Link:https://www.nationalacademies.org/cdn/materials/9fba0c8a-0f5f-445b-b7e8-1662edd96bd4
Source snippet
Briony Swire-ThompsonA backfire effect is said to occur when an evidence-based correction leads to an individual believing even more in t...
10.
Source: researchgate.net
Link:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358440351_The_backfire_effect_after_correcting_misinformation_is_strongly_associated_with_reliability
Source snippet
The Backfire Effect After Correcting Misinformation Is...We suggest that backfire effects are not a robust empirical phenomenon, and tha...
11.
Source: cssh.northeastern.edu
Link:https://cssh.northeastern.edu/nulab/backfire-effects/
Source snippet
Social Sciences & HumanitiesThe Prevalence of Backfire Effects After the Correction of...This study aims to explore (1) how frequent the...
12.
Source: researchgate.net
Title: 225336846 When Corrections Fail The Persistence of Political Misperceptions
Link:https://www.researchgate.net/publication/225336846_When_Corrections_Fail_The_Persistence_of_Political_Misperceptions
Source snippet
(PDF) When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political...Nyhan and Reifler (2010) noted the "backfire effect," but Wood and Porter (2...
13.
Source: smpa.gwu.edu
Link:https://smpa.gwu.edu/elusive-backfire-effect-mass-attitudes-steadfast-factual-adherence
Source snippet
al information when that information challenges their partisan and/or ideological...Read more...
14.
Source: calgara.github.io
Link:https://calgara.github.io/Pol157_Spring2019/Nyhan%20%26%20Reifler%202010.pdf
Source snippet
When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political...by B Nyhan 2010 Cited by 4638 the backfire effect must be the result of the...
15.
Source: fullfact.org
Link:https://fullfact.org/media/uploads/backfire_report_fullfact.pdf
Source snippet
than 10,100 people in the US. They selected prominent...Read more...
16.
Source: semanticscholar.org
Link:https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-Elusive-Backfire-Effect%3A-Mass-Attitudes%E2%80%99-Wood-Porter/683758a5c7d21c485b1a9691cb8b03cbe4bfb951
Source snippet
[PDF] The Elusive Backfire Effect: Mass Attitudes' Steadfast...15 Mar 2019 The research that is reviewed suggests that the accuracy-in...
17.
Source: djflynn.org
Title: elusive backfire effect wood porter
Link:https://www.djflynn.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/elusive-backfire-effect-wood-porter.pdf
Source snippet
The elusive backfire effectby T Wood 2016 Cited by 1163 Nyhan and Reifler observed backfire on two high salience issues (whether WM...
18.
Source: bibsonomy.org
Link:https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/f1e68aafbf02cca80f2b425b02bd262e
Source snippet
When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political...An extensive literature addresses citizen ignorance, but very little research focu...
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