In a completely logical world, people who encountered evidence that contradicted their beliefs would first evaluate this evidence, and then review their beliefs in the light of this fact and change their minds. But that doesn't happen much in the real world.
Instead, when people encounter evidence that requires them to doubt their beliefs, they usually reject that evidence, strengthening their support for their original ideas. This phenomenon is due to a cognitive bias, the name of which has a backlash effect.
It is important to understand the backlash effect, as it affects your ability to logically process information, as well as your ability to change the mind of others. So in this article, you'll learn about the rebound effect, understand why and when it affects people, and see what you can do to calm the effect.
What Is The Backlash Effect?
The backlash effect is a cognitive bias that causes people who see evidence that doesn't match their views to reject that evidence and increase their support for their actual views. So, in fact, the backlash effect means that it is ineffective to present people with evidence that they are wrong, and even this can create a backlash, eventually leading them to even support their original ideas even more.
So the backlash effect is a subtype of confirmation bias. Confirmation bias is a cognitive bias that means that people reject information that contradicts their beliefs, or interpret that information in a way that endorses said beliefs.
Examples Of Recoil Effect
The backlash effect has been encountered in scientific studies where the following scenarios have been examined:
- A study examining voting preferences showed that showing people negative information about the political candidate they approved of increased support for that candidate.
- A study examining misconceptions about issues intertwined with politics showed that giving people real information that contradicts their views on the issue often leads people to believe their actual misconceptions more severely.
- A study examining parents ' intentions to vaccinate their children showed that sharing information with anti-vaccination parents that shows why vaccinating children is the right decision sometimes makes it more likely to believe a link between vaccination and autism.
- A study examining people's intentions to be vaccinated against the flu showed that giving people who think the vaccine is dangerous information that refutes these myths often leads to a decrease in their intentions to be vaccinated.
As a result, the backlash effect is an event that can affect people from very different areas. The fact that this event has had a significant impact on widespread support for various lexicographical beliefs explains why attempts to refute these beliefs are generally ineffective. Of course, the backlash effect can affect people with all kinds of views, as we have seen above.
Why Are People Affected By The Backlash Effect?
People are affected by the backlash effect because of the process they go through when they encounter information that contradicts the beliefs they already have.
In fact, people who encounter information that indicates that their beliefs are wrong in any way feel threatened, and as a result, various negative emotions are awakened in the person.[3] this is especially possible if their beliefs are highly critical to their self-perception, that is, they reflect a very important part of the person's identity and ideology.
These felt negative emotions negatively affect people's ability to accept the corrective information they encounter, because the likelihood of refusing to process this information properly increases with the likelihood of trying to find ways of not taking this information into account.
People often try to ignore and reject corrective information, which can sometimes be the reason they experience a backlash effect. Especially during efforts to reject corrective information, people first try to remember information that they already have that they can use in their arguments, which leads them to strengthen this information in their minds and therefore increase their support for their views.
Moreover, if individuals are strongly enough opposed to unsolicited information, they will find more arguments supporting their stance. This leads them to believe that the number of evidence confirming their point of view is greater than before unwanted information was presented. In the end, this leads them to support their original views even more than before.
How To Reduce The Backlash Effect?
Reducing The Backlash Effect Of Others
The fact that the rebound effect is a cognitive bias means that you can use general debiasing techniques to respond. Among these strategies is to increase awareness of this bias in people by, for example, using simple explanations and changing the way you present information.
One study, for example, examined people's views on federal welfare programs. Researchers found that the vast majority of people are highly misinformed about the nature and scope of these programs, and those who are less knowledgeable in them are the ones who trust their information the most.
In fact, the researchers also found that presenting facts to people about these welfare programs had little effect on changing people's views. But in a follow-up study, the researchers observed that people responded more positively to the new evidence as a result of subtle changes in the way they presented facts.
In this continuation, people were first asked to estimate the percentage of the national budget allocated to welfare. Then they were asked what percentage of welfare they believe should be.
Asking these questions one after another prompted people to compare their own perception of reality with their preferred spending before they were told how much the budget spent on welfare actually was. This meant that most participants had to digest the information that the amount spent on welfare was not only less than they thought, but also less than the amount they believed should be separated.
If people had processed the information they had acquired in a logical way from the beginning, this comparison would have been made naturally. The only way they could actually achieve this was to ask them clearly how much they thought should be spent on welfare. Accordingly, participants responded positively to corrective information only when this preliminary question was asked, as this question allowed them to absorb and accept the fact that they were wrong.
So if you want to avoid the backlash when talking to someone to change that person's mind, remember: the way you present information is just as important as the information you present. In this regard, you also need to present new information in an attitude that does not contradict, invites people to assimilate the facts and allows them to achieve the result that you want them to achieve.
Also, if you want your main idea to be thoroughly understood, keep in mind that attacking the other person because they have a "wrong" opinion, no matter how deviated they are, has a very good chance of working. Such an attitude will most likely put the person you are dealing with in defense mode, in which case they will not be predisposed to accept new evidence. This is a very important point, because if people perceive you as rude or offensive, they are more likely to doubt the validity of your argument, even if it is logical and sound-based.
Reducing The Backlash Effect On Your Own Beliefs
Thanks to your understanding of this bias, you can reduce the impact of backlash experienced by other people, as well as reduce the severity of what happens on your own. To achieve this, you need to be able to take a critical look at how you digest new information. So you can think more logically and make better decisions.
The main way to reduce your self-recoil effect is to change the reaction you give when you encounter information that contradicts your beliefs by being aware of its effect.
In particular, when faced with such information, you should not directly ignore it or immediately try to explain why it is wrong. Instead, you should first try to look at it from a different angle and try to examine the event in itself, without comparing it to your views on the subject.
In addition, you can also use both the above-mentioned methods and other bias removal techniques to avoid this bias. These techniques focus primarily on allowing you to process them in a conscious, logical manner, rather than intuitively reacting to new information. In this way, you are guaranteed to give the new information the chance it deserves.
Warnings About The Backlash Effect
Just because the backlash effect plays an important role in digesting information doesn't mean it affects everyone at any time. Studies show that there are also situations where people's thought process is not affected.
Of course, this observation does not have to coincide with other finds on the subject, because even studies that support the existence of the rebound effect prove its dependence on various factors with its high variability.
Moreover, since it is difficult to predict at what times the backlash effect will be involved in someone's thought process, it is often recommended to treat it in terms of presenting information, assuming that this situation will be encountered.
As a result, although the backlash effect may affect people, it is not actually observed in all cases. Whether this happens to people is based on different factors, and since this is difficult to predict, you should generally be cautious and act considering the possible existence of this bias.
Relevant Cognitive Biases
In addition to the recoil effect, which can sometimes be called the worldview recoil effect, there are two more recoil effects. These, in turn, lead to a strengthening of support for a particular opinion if evidence is encountered that contradicts the views that are owned:
- Exaggerated rebound effect. The exaggeration backlash effect is a cognitive bias that causes people who are faced with a complex explanation to reject it in favor of a simpler alternative, and sometimes to solidify their view on that simple alternative. For example, this can increase support for people who are presented with an overly technical and scientific refutation of a simple myth.
- Familiar rebound effect. The familiarity rebound effect is a cognitive bias that causes people to remember misinformation better, and even remember it correctly because they are more exposed to the misinformation after showing corrective information that disproves the claim. For example, this can increase one's support for a particular misinformation whenever an attempt is made to refute a claim.