Belief and the ‘Backfire phenomena’

http://www.thestar.com/living/article/835298--how-facts-can-make-things-worse


“It is known as the backfire phenomenon: misinformed people who are given correct information not only reject that information, but end up believing the wrong information even more strongly.
Political scientists Jason Reifler and Brendan Nyhan began looking at the “backfire” phenomenon because both were interested in improving political debate.

The “backfire” phenomenon can be seen in everything from different views on a call in a hockey game to the so-called weapons of mass destruction that were alleged to be in Iraq prior to the 2003 U.S. invasion, said Reifler, an assistant professor of political science at Georgia State University.

“We wanted to address ways in which citizens could essentially agree on what the basic facts in a political debate are,” he said. “And then we can disagree on the policy solution.”
In a recent study published in the journal Political Science, the pair looked at ways to “help correct people when they believe things about the world that aren’t true.”

The political scientists worked with a group of 150 psychology students. The students were given a newspaper article from the 2004 presidential campaign about President George Bush and his position on why the U.S. was going to war with Iraq. In it, he was quoted as saying there was a real risk that Sadam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

Half of the students who read the article were also given a correction: an additional paragraph saying that, according to the Duelfer Report, while Iraq had aspirations to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction program, it did not have any weapons of mass destruction during the U.S. invasion in 2003.

The other half did not receive that information.
Here’s what they found: Those who got the correction and identified themselves as liberals now believed there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Those who got the correction and identified themselves as conservatives were much more likely to say that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

In fact, said Reifler, those receiving the correction moved even more vehemently in the wrong direction.
Simply put, the correction backfired.”

“This is a behaviour that is widespread,” said Reifler, “and it isn’t limited to political conservatives.”

Part of this response can be attributed to a common psychological phenomenon known as motivated reasoning.

“One of the things. . . when people encounter discordant information is to find a way to deal with that information in a way that doesn’t threaten what they already know or believe,” Reifler explained. ......"
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Given that the ‘Backfire effect’ reinforces previously held beliefs…I wonder how much effect 'the facts' have on theists who deny evolution and believe the world is only seven thousand years old or atheists who deny the central role of State imposed atheism in Communist regimes?

This is quite interesting. But how to counter it?

Historically ‘the story’ has proven to be extremely potent and effective in initiating change in belief.
A story does not have to be based on/in fact to be potent…but it may need to contain/ reflect ‘truth’ (or perception thereof) to win people over and/or hold and change them.

In contemporary Counselling giving advice/counsel is rarely effective…people commonly resist/reject direct advice…even if it is good advice based on the facts.
If you place your hands gently on someone’s shoulders and attempt to gently turn them around to see what is behind them they naturally stiffen up and resist. If you describe something interesting/important behind them they are more likely to turn and look of their own volition.
The discovery becomes ‘theirs’.



The facts are often sharp/direct instruments that do not initiate change in perspective/belief desired.
The narrative is often a blunt/broad indirect instrument that can facilitate change in perspective/belief….but often in unexpected/unintended ways.


(Sarah told a story about herself...despite the fact that she is obviously dumber than dog shite...some people brought the story).

Although if trust in information systems is removed it can be the same.

My point is this, people do not know for sure all the mysteries of the supernatural.

But if the supernatural was despair, until proven wrong I would continue to think it is of a better form, and untill I had all knowledge, that would not happen. And, heh, its pretty obvious I don't have all knowledge :)

My point is there are some conjectures that are not believed by choice, and some believed by choice, because the information is not complete.

If a platoon on a hill is outnumbered that does not mean the entire group that platoon is with is outnumbered in a larger context. If you made the logical observational decision you might surrender, when reinforcements are on the way. And even if reinforcements don't show up 100 times, the 101 time you still know they might. So why give up? And I have gotten reinforcements in some things, and not others.

Just because observation shows one thing, it does not show what is outside of your observational range. So you have to count on Forward observers calling in accurate fire and radio calls and hope they are not chatter, even when you know they could be.


So on the topic of religion, it is a choice, to believe existence is better.


Also the only things done to me to try and get me to believe in despair is treat me badly, so I am not going to believe in that because those groups do not derserve my respect anyways. Although I try to be nice, that also is a choice, but not going to follow something that can only try to get me to follow it by threats of bad things, or removing what I have or should have.


Note my use of a military metaphor is a personal limitation, the artilery would be kindness.

destroyed a lot of valuable art and the lives of Christians, Buddhist monks, and Taoist priests. However, it failed to produce the carnage in and of itself that can be laid at the feet of most religions around the world in modern times going all the way back to prehistory.

Try motivating the masses to fight for the glory of--nothing?--and you begin to see the problem. Unless they're convinced god's on their side, they'll be unenthusiastic unless an invader is at the city limits.

Most of the deaths that can be laid at the feet of Communism can be more attributed to the combination of hamfisted collectivization combined with the lousy luck of bad weather and poor harvests. Scooping people off their land and telling them to work for the glorious worker's state just wasn't sufficient motivation and millions starved because of it. Even the killing fields of Cambodia were due mostly to starvation as office workers and teachers proved to be poor collectivist farmers.

I'll be among the first to say that a heavy handed ban on religion coming from the state is a bad idea. Banning the opiate of the masses is just like banning, well, opiates. The masses will continue on with it, flouting those laws and others, besides, as the black market of religion is centered in homes and secret cabals, out of the sight of the state.

However, official atheism didn't cause the massive death toll in Communist regimes. The economic bungling did.

There are insufficient hard facts/statistics to make an other than subjective/pre disposed assessment.

I referred to the denial of “the central role of State imposed atheism in Communist regimes” because there have been numerous claims that atheism was picked up by the Communists along the way, was a sideshow, incidental, not central to Communism.
All of these claims are demonstrably false…yet provision of the facts (direct quotes from the Communist Manifesto and/or Engles, Marx, Lennin etc)…prompt the Backfire Phenomena ( ie, confirms/reinforces for some that the Communists picked up and used atheism…but it wasn’t central or important to them).
OP “Part of this response can be attributed to a common psychological phenomenon known as motivated reasoning.”



“I'll be among the first to say that a heavy handed ban on religion coming from the state is a bad idea.”

Good to hear.
I grew up surrounded by Polish, Latvian, Estonian, Yugoslav immigrants…many had left their homelands and families in the 50s-60s not because of starvation caused by inept collective agriculture but because of the denial of political and religious freedom. In many cases they left because of ongoing religious persecution. Many left good and comfortable well paid professional positions to start life again on the other side of the world as manual labourers.
It takes a great deal to wrench someone away from home, family, occupation and leave it all behind… there are many forms of carnage.

“Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.'
Since then I have spend well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: 'Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened.”

I don’t need to be a theist to respect Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s conclusion.

I don't doubt that it exists. But this article does not give me a good feel for exactly how it works. Take the example:



My guess is that any politically motivated students already had both pieces of information. Juxtaposing them, probably recalled emotional discussions/reactions to previous information. I'd also guess that trust of information sources plays a big role. In the US, at this time, we all tend to believe certain news stories and reject others. We don't accept the news media as a valid source of information.

My question is, how do people react to new, discordant information that comes from trusted sources? Much more likely to accept this new information is my expectation. The real message here may be, any news source that colors stories to satisfy its own goals will eventually lose any value as a news source.

An art professor I once had made an observation about understanding the world. He said, in reference to the landscape, that you could photograph it, you could measure it, you could collect samples of it, you could ask people about it, but the best way to understand the landscape was to walk on it.

People live through the experience of living. That experience is hard won and includes not just everything we know but everything we feel. It also includes everything we think everybody else might know or feel. It's not enough to simply present data to someone to convince them of something no matter how accurate it is. They certainly won't be convinced if you tell them how you feel if you haven't measured your feelings against reality. If you want to have an impact on somebody's perception of the world, you have to bring with you the whole of your experience for their evaluation. Survival requires cooperation and cooperation requires shared experience. To be honest is to share all of one's experience, not just the parts of it that will make your case.

It seems to me that when we create an ideology that fails to take into consideration the actual lives of others and then attempt to force that ideology on them regardless of their experience the result is always the same disaster. Pigeonholing people makes them uncooperative.




I think it's because creating an ideology without the cooperation of those who will be affected by it is a type of lie. It is a lie of omission. We omit the parts of other people's lives that do not serve the ideology. In blinkered service to that ideology we also lie to ourselves.

The "isms" are all the same and the list is endless: Communism, Atheism, Capitalism, Catholicism, Fascism, Protestantism, Theism, Rastafarianism and on and on and on they go. If we use them as a tool for cooperation any one will probably work about as well as any of the others. Used as a tool for the projection of our own ego every "ism" will always result in ideological failure.

It could be that the only truly workable "ism" is one that is not codified, but rather grows out of the cooperation of those who live it.

An English Anthropologist drove a Kalahari Bushman up into the mountains and pointed to the “Bison” below.
The Bushman laughed at the Englishman’s ignorance- “Bison are big, those animals are as small as ants”.

As my Art professor was want to say- “Perspective is everything”…and perspective wasn’t developed/understood till late in art/history.

From- “People live through the experience of living….” to “. Pigeonholing people makes them uncooperative.”...I agree.
And if we wish to understand “somebody's perception of the world” (religious/ideological) we have to consider “the whole of {their} experience for {our} evaluation”.

ie. The fact of god being unproven/unprovable does not negate the whole theist experience.
Nor does the fact of the provision to all of material basics (food, shelter, employment) negate the experience of denial of religious freedom or religious persecution under Communist State imposed atheism.

"Home was a condo on the fifteenth floor of a filing cabinet for widows and young professionals."

Yup, and material conditions much the same for those in the Soviet or New York…and yet the immigrant/refugee traffic was one way.

“The "isms" are all the same and the list is endless: Communism, Atheism, Capitalism, Catholicism, Fascism, Protestantism, Theism, Rastafarianism and on and on and on they go. If we use them as a tool for cooperation any one will probably work about as well as any of the others.”

There’s the rub. Fascism is definitionaly non cooperative. Communism is theoretically highly cooperative….and yet historically, despite numerous protracted and determined efforts, has proven to be an abject failure.
There have been twenty-eight countries in world history that can be confirmed to have been ruled by regimes with avowed Communist/atheists at the helm … These twenty-eight historical regimes have been ruled by eighty-nine Communist/atheists, of whom more than half have engaged in democidal acts.
No other 'ism' compares with that track record.

Theism can be seen historically to have worked and failed. Capitalism (in majority religious democracy) works but may yet fail. Communism/atheism does not appear to have a single success story…..(save Cuba? ;-)


“It could be that the only truly workable "ism" is one that is not codified, but rather grows out of the cooperation of those who live it.”

Globalism?
;-)
The recognition that we no longer live in independent sovereign States but on a planet that will require our interdependent “cooperation” if we and it are to survive?

to avoid creating a religion? They spring up all the time all over the place. It seems to me that the whole notion of a culture choosing whether or not to engage in religion is an exercise in futility.

True indeed that Stalin was an atheist. At least he said he was. And we all know that Marx referred to religion as the "opium of the people". But I don't think Stalin (or any other dictator) had any illusions about actually avoiding the human impulse toward religion. He didn't want to banish cultural opium, he wanted control of the needle. He saw the emotional synchronicity that religion provided and considering the zeitgeist of the industrial revolution and the sacred text provided by Marx with his canonization of Lenin, diverted the natural human impulse toward religious practice to himself and called it atheism. In practice I'll bet it felt just like a religion for everyone who believed in him. Of course those that didn't believe in Stalin's communism paid dearly for their apostasy. All those purges and persecutions weren't cultural purification. They were just getting rid of the competition.

It seems to me that capitalism is best at managing abundance. That's why it has come out ahead so far. Communism, on the other hand, would probably work best with scarcity. We'll probably get back there sooner or later when the edifice of materialism collapses under its own weight. Then we can occupy our time dividing up whatever what we were able to catch that day the way humans have done for most of their history. Fascism; well, you got me there. Fascism is just fucked up. That's probably why it didn't last very long.

What does the future hold? Damned if I know. I'm out of my depth already. Maybe humanism is the new means of social organization. I would like to think so, but we would have to continue to become increasingly interconnected and that takes a lot of resources that are clearly on the wane. We may be in for another axial age.

embraced and implemented by tens of thousands…not just imposed by lone dictators.

“True indeed that Stalin was an atheist. At least he said he was. And we all know that Marx referred to religion as the "opium of the people". But I don't think Stalin (or any other dictator) had any illusions about actually avoiding the human impulse toward religion.”

Oh please.

A couple of posts in and already the facts of State imposed atheism are up against the “common psychological phenomenon known as motivated reasoning”?
“In the atheistic and communist Soviet Union, 44 anti religious museums were opened and the largest was the 'The Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism' in Leningrad’s Kazan cathedral.”
(See Wiki on State imposed atheism…it’s a lengthy primer on the basics)
From the outset- Hegel, Marx, Engles…the core objective of the elimination of religion was there in writing, discussion, philosophy and Manifesto….and the objective was carried out and implemented from Politburo down to Cadre.
Please don’t pretend it was just Stalin, or just the leadership, or just something they came up with but never had any illusions about it working out. State imposed atheism was a dedicated endeavor to implement core belief and principle.

“…diverted the natural human impulse toward religious practice to himself and called it atheism.”

Ah huh. Communist atheists didn’t really intend to eliminate religion and never really thought they could…it was all about building a new religions/cults with Stalin, Mao and all twenty-eight historical regimes- ruled by eighty-nine Communist/atheists, as demigods and just “call it atheism”. And humans walked with dinosaurs and the world is only seven thousand years old.

“In practice I'll bet it felt just like a religion for everyone who believed in him”

Sure. No true Communist/atheists and no true Scotsman. It all (the fossil record of Manifesto and intent, the history of protracted anti religious endeavour and the bones of thousands of dedicated believer Cadre) reflect not ‘atheism’ but ‘theism’ in the cult of personality.
“It is known as the backfire phenomenon: misinformed people who are given correct information not only reject that information, but end up believing the wrong information even more strongly.”

“All those purges and persecutions weren't cultural purification. They were just getting rid of the competition.”

1/ That is not what the Communist/atheists said in relation to their beliefs/intent >prior< to the purges.
2/ That is not what the Communist/atheists said in relation to their actions/undertakings >during< the purges.
3/ That is not what the historical record (and independent/academic reading thereof) reflects in regard the stated intent and clear action of Communist regimes in establishing state imposed atheism.

“Fascism is just fucked up. That's probably why it didn't last very long.”

I would have thought that when it came to the cult of personality and demigod dictators…Fascism would provide far more sustainable examples of ‘theism’ in action…..no?

“Maybe humanism is the new means of social organization.”

A plausible speculation.
Given that we have no historical example of a Humanist State…the next best “proof is in the pudding” test of “social organization” would be on the micro.
Do we have an example of people of diverse background coming to live and work together communally to demonstrate Humanism in practice? A display case working model of communal Humanism?

"state imposed atheism was a core product of a political philosophy embraced and implemented by tens of thousands", what made them embrace it? Why did all those people pull together the way they did? They must have believed in it.

How many kings have reigned in the last seven thousand years? How many of them claimed divinity? How many of their people believed it?

I've always compared Fascism to a virus that preyed on it's host too aggressively and killed it.

As far as Humanism goes, the best I can do is speculate. I have no idea about a working model for communal Humanism. I've never heard of one. Given our inability to understand with any consistency the nature of the human condition, it's a long shot.

It (State imposed atheism) was an essential/core aspect of Communism- articulated by Marx, promulgated by Lennin, Trotsky and Co, discussed and embraced by hundreds and eventually thousands of workers, soldiers, peasants and students. Tens of thousands became dedicated “believers” in Communism and the atheism that was a core component.

“…what made them embrace it? Why did all those people pull together the way they did? They must have believed in it”.

A variety of reasons- Poverty, hunger, war, Tsarist oppression, the alignment of Tsar and church, the rise of modernism, the promise of a bright new collective future based on science.
"the state established atheism as the only scientific truth."
Daniel Peris,
"Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless"

Tens of thousands came to fervently believe joined the Communist party and support its objectives…including State imposed atheism.
With the crushing of the White Russians there was no effective resistance and no counter revolution…and yet the persecution and elimination of religion continued as a doctrinal core objective.
It was not enough to be free from the oppression of hunger…the people had to be freed from the oppression of superstitious belief.

“How many kings have reigned in the last seven thousand years? How many of them claimed divinity? How many of their people believed it? “

Don’t know. How is it relevant? Doubtless there have been hundreds/thousands of rulers and would be kings who claimed Divine right to rule and/or to be Divine (from Roman Emperors to Louie the Sun King to the Tsar)….but that is all that Communism and State imposed atheism was supposed to sweep away.
How many of “their people believed it”?...I would hazard a guess at- None of those who knew the king personally, cleaned his vomit or licked his royal arse. Among the peasantry? Doubtless many believed.
(Google- Mad Ludwig of Bavaria…..or the Cargo Cult of Prince Phillip)

But what of it? The Communists did not seek or gain influence then power on a platform of Divine right to rule…but exactly the opposite…Kings will go and so will religion.

“I have no idea about a working model for communal Humanism. I've never heard of one.”

Though there have been hundreds of attempts at establishing atheist, Humanist and secular philosophical/political communes since the French Revolution it is not surprising that you have never heard of one. None lived…all failed. Usually within months of the passing of the charismatic founder.

Why would that be?
Often starting with the best in education, land, recourses, well laid plan/philosophy/objective, common language, shared background and goal……none have been able to establish a commune that lasts beyond eighty years.

And yet….theists have been able to gather poor and uneducated mixed with well off and literate, differing languages and cultures and ethnicity….and establish Monasteries, Convents and Communes that have endured for hundreds of years.

How? Why?

“Given our inability to understand with any consistency the nature of the human condition, it's a long shot.”

Some horses (on track record) are “a long shot”….. others have already long demonstrated the most basic understanding of the nature of the human condition in the simplest social experiment- getting people of diverse backgrounds to live and work together for prolonged periods.

between belief in the return of Christ and belief in a classless society?

How are we to distinguish between a king that claims a divine right to capricious control of life and death over his subjects and a dictator that claims the same right because of some pseudo-scientific socioeconomic theory?

I'm more inclined to agree with your change in opinion from theism having "worked and failed" to its having "demonstrated the most basic understanding of the nature of the human condition". We can imagine eternity and we can imagine someone there to occupy it. That's why religion is almost universally associated with a deity. That doesn't mean that the same means of cooperative enterprise can't or won't be attempted with some other object of belief.

Theism, communism, humanism, and all the rest of the isms appear to be little more than a distinction without a difference.