- Joined
- Apr 20, 2018
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- Washington, D.C.
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It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.
-- Mark Twain
-- Mark Twain
It's hard to read Twain's remark and not immediately think of the prevalence of and predilection with which Americans inaptly conjure and cleave to conspiracy theories and the claptrap of "alternative facts." Curiously, however, abundantly extant evidence efforts to debunk a lie, rather than enhancing its evanescence, educes the opposite reaction, often enough amplifying a community's canardically cultivated convictions.
An extensive literature addresses citizen ignorance, but very little research focuses on misperceptions. Can these false or unsubstantiated beliefs about politics be corrected?
Previous studies have not tested the efficacy of corrections in a realistic format. We conducted four experiments in which subjects read mock news articles that included either a misleading claim from a politician, or a misleading claim and a correction. Results indicate that corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the targeted ideological group. We also document several instances of a "backfire effect" in which corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.
Previous studies have not tested the efficacy of corrections in a realistic format. We conducted four experiments in which subjects read mock news articles that included either a misleading claim from a politician, or a misleading claim and a correction. Results indicate that corrections frequently fail to reduce misperceptions among the targeted ideological group. We also document several instances of a "backfire effect" in which corrections actually increase misperceptions among the group in question.
In the culturally and politically moribund quicksand of persistent political misconceptions the American polity lay statically splayed the squealing "stuck pigs" of left and right partisans. The right decries alleged chicanery not only from the left but also from within its own bivouac; the left censures the right's charlatanry and criminality. To neither does it matter what has or hasn't demonstrably established, both sides "dutifully" disregard and claw contemptuously at visible, heretofore inviolable verisimility....all to secure transitory victory at the expense of the very thing that makes possible their contretemps.
If we, the US is to endure, both sides must yield: the right cannot continue to condone the personal and political effluvium coming from its coldest, uncondign and craziest quarters, and, in return, the left must acquiesce to some elements of conservatism. And, yes, that means the right must "go first." It does because presently, the single biggest existential threat to US democracy is Donald Trump, and the right controls whether he stays or goes, at least until the 2020 election. The thing is US democracy as it was founded and as we've long known it may well not last that long if it must wait that long....and whether it does lies squarely in the right's hands.
The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
-- Winston S. Churchill
