Backfire Effect

Nyhan and Reifler reported it in 2010, and it was widely repeated. Later work, including their own, has largely failed to reproduce it — corrections usually help. A rare case of a bias entering common usage before failing replication.

In practice

• A manager corrects a rumour in an all-hands and watches it circulate for another month, though the more common outcome is that the correction quietly works.
• Treat the effect as unproven: the evidence now suggests correcting a colleague's mistaken figure usually helps, and the fear of backfiring is itself the more common error.

Possible explanations

The proposed explanation was motivated reasoning: a correction threatens an identity-relevant belief, so the recipient counter-argues and ends more convinced.

In its favour

The mechanism it proposed is real in other settings, since people do counter-argue threatening information, and the original studies were a serious attempt to test it.

Against it

It is rare in replication, including in the original authors' later work: corrections usually move belief in the right direction, so the strong version is unsupported and now serves mainly as a caution about how fast a striking finding spreads.

Standing

Rare in replication; corrections usually help, so the strong claim has not been supported.

Subject

Communication & Media

Essay

What happens to a message after it is sent