Briony Swire-Thompson
London E1W 1YW, UK
Portland, ME 04101
2nd floor
11th floor
Boston, MA 02115
2nd floor
London E1W 1LP, UK
Talk recording
In today’s information-based society, people are continuously presented with misinformation that needs to be corrected. It is extremely important that we know when corrections are effective, and whether there are circumstances under which they are likely to be ineffective or even make matters worse. The backfire effect is when a correction leads to an individual increasing their belief in the very misconception the correction is aiming to rectify. I will discuss the current state of backfire effect literature, the likelihood that the backfire effect can be attributed to measurement error, and whether certain item attributes make backfire effects more likely to be elicited. We suggest that backfire effects are not a robust empirical phenomenon, and more reliable measures, powerful designs, and stronger links between experimental design and theory could help move the field ahead.