How Facts Backfire

In How Facts Backfire by Joe Keohane states that, “facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds.” He proves the idea of facts backfiring at various points through out his essay through studies and by giving real life examples. “Backfire,” is the key concept in his essay as he states that it means that any individual has his or her own opinions about certain things regardless of being right or wrong. He advances in saying that it is a phenomenon known as “a natural defense mechanism to avoid that cognitive dissonance.” Keohanes explains that in order for a something to “backfire,” an individual whose opinion about a fact is proven wrong he or she gets defensive and believes they’re even more right than they were before. An example he gives of this in his essay is when Keohane describes a situation in which a group of people were asked if they believed there were WMDs in Iraq. Of all those who answered that they believed there was WMDs in Iraq, would not accept that this was in fact a lie and instead believed that there WMDs were in Iraq even more; regardless of the correction. This situation proves the concept of “backfire,” because it demonstrates the idea that the more an individual has to defend their beliefs or opinions, the more they in turn believe it to be true. He implies that people naturally defend themselves and put up that wall is because of their ignorance. Further stating that, “most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas, and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence.” This is a valid point and is of great importance because as he later states “we often base our opinions on our beliefs, which can have an uneasy relationships with facts… And rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept.” A present example of this is the political debate on abortion, which tends to be dictated by a religious belief rather then the fact that a women has the right to chose what she can do with her body. Finally, Keohane discusses the possibility of self-esteem playing a role in “backfire.” He uses a study by Nyhan to support this idea. His study suggests that those with more self-esteem are more willing to accept new information whereas someone with lower self-esteem would be less open-minded. Basically meaning that if you feel good about yourself you’ll listen while if you feel insecure and threatened you won’t. This is a valid point because those who has low-self esteem are more closed off and hesitant to change, which will then make them defend their position more. This defending their opinion and belief in turn just becomes something they believe in more and they’ll remain un-open to any change or outside opinions. This defense mechanism can apply to various situations in a person’s life, not only to political views.