ReviewProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2021
Why the backfire effect does not explain the durability of political misperceptions.
Review in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed.
- Blueprint of a smokescreen: Introducing the validated climate disinformation corpus for behavioural research on combating climate disinformation.British journal of psychology (London, England : 1953) · 2026Article
- Collective self-justification and resistance to integration: behavioral and social mechanisms within the Israeli ultra-orthodox community.Frontiers in sociology · 2026Article
- Prior beliefs & automated fact checking: Limits on the effectiveness of AI-based corrections.PloS one · 2026Article
- Does fact-checking COVID-19 fake news on social media correct readers' false beliefs? A study of Chinese youths.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Political identity, algorithmic news exposure, and trust in digital media: the sequential mediating associations of motivated reasoning and misinformation susceptibility.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Messages from co-partisan elected officials can increase climate mitigation intentions without changing climate beliefs.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Prebunking and credible source corrections increase election credibility: Evidence from the US and Brazil.Science advances · 2025Article
- Fostering trustworthy information: countering disinformation when there are no bare facts.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Strategies for Effective Public Health Communication in a Complex Information Environment.Annual review of public health · 2025Review
- Preventive Strategies Against Disinformation: A Study on Digital and Information Literacy Activities Led by Fact-Checking Organisations.Open research Europe · 2025Article
- Development and validation of a multi-agent AI pipeline for automated credibility assessment of tobacco misinformation: a proof-of-concept study.Frontiers in artificial intelligence · 2025Article
- Current engagement with unreliable sites from web search driven by navigational search.Science advances · 2024Article
- Processing of misinformation as motivational and cognitive biases.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- How to distinguish climate sceptics, antivaxxers, and persistent sceptics: Evidence from a multi-country survey of public attitudes.PloS one · 2024Article
- How to distinguish climate sceptics, antivaxxers, and persistent sceptics: Evidence from a multi-country survey of public attitudes.PloS one · 2024Article
- Sharing Reliable COVID-19 Information and Countering Misinformation: In-Depth Interviews With Information Advocates.JMIR infodemiology · 2023Article
- A Story is Better Told With Collective Interests: An Experimental Examination of Misinformation Correction During the COVID-19 Pandemic.American journal of health promotion : AJHP · 2023Article
- Assumed shared belief about conspiracy theories in social networks protects paranoid individuals against distress.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Partisans' receptivity to persuasive messaging is undiminished by countervailing party leader cues.Nature human behaviour · 2023Article
- Correcting COVID-19 vaccine misinformation in 10 countries.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Previous research indicated that corrective information can sometimes provoke a so-called "backfire effect" in which respondents more strongly endorsed a misperception about a controversial political or scientific issue when their beliefs or predispositions were challenged. I show how subsequent research and media coverage seized on this finding, distorting its generality and exaggerating its role relative to other factors in explaining the durability of political misperceptions. To the contrary, an emerging research consensus finds that corrective information is typically at least somewhat effective at increasing belief accuracy when received by respondents. However, the research that I review suggests that the accuracy-increasing effects of corrective information like fact checks often do not last or accumulate; instead, they frequently seem to decay or be overwhelmed by cues from elites and the media promoting more congenial but less accurate claims. As a result, misperceptions typically persist in public opinion for years after they have been debunked. Given these realities, the primary challenge for scientific communication is not to prevent backfire effects but instead, to understand how to target corrective information better and to make it more effective. Ultimately, however, the best approach is to disrupt the formation of linkages between group identities and false claims and to reduce the flow of cues reinforcing those claims from elites and the media. Doing so will require a shift from a strategy focused on providing information to the public to one that considers the roles of intermediaries in forming and maintaining belief systems.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.