Backfire effect

The backfire effect describes the cognitive bias that given evidence against their beliefs, people can reject the evidence and believe even more strongly.

It was first suggested/coined in 2010, however subsequent research has failed to replicate findings supporting the backfire effect.

One study conducted out of the Ohio State University and George Washington University studied 10,100 participants with 52 different issues expected to trigger a backfire effect. While the findings did conclude that individuals are reluctant to embrace facts that contradict their already held ideology, no cases of backfire were detected.

The backfire effect has since been noted to be a rare phenomenon rather than a common occurrence.

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