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In Politics, Facts Fail To Change Minds

Thomas Jefferson said, "Information is the currency of democracy."

However, research increasingly suggests that factual information actually has little power to change our minds, or the way we vote. Surprisingly, the truth may actually make us more convinced of the facts that support our existing beliefs, even when they are easily proven false.

A study recently published in the journal Political Behavior tested the ability of facts to correct misconceptions. In 2005-2006, political scientists at the University of Michigan conducted a series of experiments in which subjects read mock news articles containing untrue but widespread claims, followed by a truthful correction.

For self-identified liberals, reading an article on the Bush administration's restrictions on stem cell research followed by a correction noting that private funding was not restricted and federal funding was available for research on cells collected before 2001 had little effect on how they rated the statement President Bush has banned stem cell research in the United States.

Meanwhile, in self-identified conservatives, researchers found that participants not only ignored corrections that challenged their existing beliefs, but also experienced the phenomena of backfire, becoming more confident in their convictions after reading corrections to false stories regarding the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and increases in government revenues following Bush tax cuts.

Why does this happen? It may simply be a case of our brains searching for consistency and avoiding the discomfort of cognitive dissonance.

Although they state a desire to continue exploring the concept of backfire as it may apply to liberals, the authors note that the fact that they have thusfar only witnessed the phenomena in conservatives supports the idea that conservatives tend to be more dogmatic.