Evidence, Reality and Rationalization

The Washington Post had an article Monday about a series of psychological experiments that the experimenters claim display some interesting results.

The experiments, conducted by political scientists at Yale, Duke and Georgia State seem to indicate that even when one finds out that something was wrong, it can still have an effect as if it were true.

In one experiment at Yale people predisposed to a certain position were given information that bolstered that position. As expected the percentage of folks holding that position went up. But, when given additional information, that demonstrated that the original information was false, the numbers didn’t go back to the original levels.

For instance, 56% of a group of Democrats disapproved of John Roberts, the Bush nominee for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, before being shown a NARAL Pro-choice America article that claimed Roberts supported “violent fringe groups and a convicted clinic bomber.” Not surprisingly the percentage who disapproved rose to 80%. When given information that the NARAL article was false, the disapproval rating only dropped back to 72%.

Worse were the experiments run by researchers from Duke and Georgia State. Those experiments appear to demonstrate that presenting evidence to someone refuting a belief can result in a “backfire effect” that actually strengthens the belief! The research further indicated that this affect tends to occur with Conservatives but not Liberals.

In other words presenting evidence to a Conservative refuting a position he holds isn’t likely to persuade him he’s wrong. It’s more likely to have him dig in his heels!

I could actually believe that. I’ve had too many arguments with Religious conservatives not to know that trying to get them to consider evidence is often an effort in futility. For years the Left has been trying to convince the Right with evidence and logic. These experiments indicate that might be a losing strategy.

This coupled with previous evidence which seems to indicate that conservatives also have a tremendous capacity to rationalize is, if accurate, something of a deadly combination. How do you reason with someone when presenting evidence to that person simply makes him cling more tightly to his original opinion?

Notice that I use a lot of “seem” and “appear” here. I haven’t actually reviewed the experimental protocols and I’m not aware that anyone has repeated or otherwise validated the results. It’s also unclear that all of the cause and effect is clearly understood.

For instance, showing people an article by NARAL with false information also conveys some accurate information. In this instance that NARAL disapproves of John Roberts in any event. That might have been enough to sway some folks regardless of the fact that the most extreme charges were false.

The results are interesting and can certainly be used to tweak the nose of your local conservative or religious fruitcake but I wouldn’t totally buy into them just yet.