The inspiration for this post came from reading a bunch of articles on how to combat “antiscience”. Each one cautioned against trying to reason or debate scientific issues with people who hold antiscience views.* Rather, one should try to relate to their emotions and social needs, e.g., be warm, tell stories, find common ground, establish a connection. Above all, don’t acknowledge their ideas have any merit.

And I thought: don’t any of these authors know about the “persuasive backfire effect”? Here’s a smattering of some relevant literature:

1. "Would you trust a robot with your mental health? The interaction of emotion and logic in persuasive backfiring," (2021) 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication

Gist: Persuasive backfiring happens when one’s attempt at persuasion has the opposite effect than what was intended, often decreasing trust in the message and messenger. Such backfiring can occur when one focuses on emotions to change attitudes that are primarily the result of relatively abstract cognitive processes based on reasoning and inference.  

Comment: If someone arrives at an opinion or attitude through reasoning, information-gathering, and abstraction (however flawed), trying to change their minds by appealing to their emotions may be perceived as so far off the mark that they’re more convinced than ever they were right.

2. “When authorities' commands backfire: Attributions about consensus and effects on deviant decision making” (2005) Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Gist: People are less likely to accept a perceived consensus if they sense that authority figures have artificially manufactured the consensus through pressure tactics against dissenters.

Comment: Expect widespread public skepticism about presumed scientific consensus when powerful individuals and groups routinely dismiss dissenting opinions within the profession. 

3. “When message tailoring backfires: The role of initial attitudes in affect–cognition matching” (2013) European Journal of Social Psychology  

Gist: Persuaders often use the tactic of tailoring messages by matching the message to the type of information on which the initial attitude is primarily based. Excerpt from study: “For example, an appeal to forgive student loans could target attitudes that are based on affect by making recipients feel sympathy for university graduates who are trapped in a vicious cycle of borrowing. Alternatively, an appeal could target attitudes that are based on cognition, by convincing recipients to believe that loan forgiveness would stimulate the economy.” 

Comment: Persuader wannabes, get to know your targets!  Listen to them. You can’t change someone’s mind without understanding their point of view and how they arrived at that point of view. Don’t assume they’re mere creatures of emotion, ignorant, unobservant and unthinking.

4. "Chatbot Empathy in Customer Service: When It Works and When It Backfires" (2022) SIGHCI Proceedings.

Gist: Expressing empathy and warmth towards someone who is disappointed in one’s expert advice may lead them to doubt one’s competence.

Comment:  To respond to complaints or criticisms with “I feel your pain” may sound like changing the subject, coming across as a not-so-subtle attempt to mask an inability to address the specific issues of concern - likewise when a public official or authority figure responds to skeptical questioning with variations of “I understand you might be confused, anxious, afraid, suspicious or overwhelmed but understand we know a lot more than you do and have your best interests at heart”. 

5. “When and why do artifact emojis lead to backfire effects on consumer response?” (2024) Journal of Consumer Behaviour

Gist: Emojis in marketing messages increase skepticism, as consumers suspect ulterior motives for using emojis and consequently are less receptive to the product.

Comment: Using displays of emotion to get something from someone is often perceived by the target as an obvious and dishonest tactic to manipulate their behavior, attitudes or opinions.

6. “Persuasive Backfiring: When Behavior Change Interventions Trigger Unintended Negative Outcomes” (2016) Persuasive Technology

Gist: People tend to respond unfavorably to weak arguments presented by a high expertise source. Similarly, arguments that rely on fear mongering often discredit the persuader to the point of disbelief or humor.

Comment: Experts who dumb down their arguments or try to scare people into accepting their guidance will often lose the respect of their audience.

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* Here’s a couple of the articles I’m referencing:

5 tips to battle anti-science aggression from doctor on front lines, by Sara Berg/American Medical Association Jul 26, 2023 

Tip 2: Don't put science up for debate 

[Per Dr. Hotez] “science is not something, typically, that we work through a debate mechanism,” he said. Instead, in science, “we write our papers, submit them to journals like … JAMA®. And it gets peer reviewed, sometimes rejected, requests for major revisions.” There are also meetings—such as the AMA Annual Meeting—that allow physicians and biomedical scientists to present in front of critical audiences so they can respond to suggestions or criticisms and even go back to their laboratory to fix any potential problems.”

How to Confront Anti-Science Sentiment: Reaching a science skeptic is not a matter of credentials; it’s a matter of heart, by Bill Sullivan/The Scientist March 1, 2022 

The knee-jerk response to people who doubt established science or medicine is to dismiss their concerns as absurd: trusting in expertise is common sense…Some people reject what today’s experts say because yesterday’s experts said the opposite—a normal occurrence in the process of science but one that nonetheless can come across as inconsistent to people unfamiliar with such dynamics…Someone who is skeptical of science isn’t going to be swayed by more science, so switch from preaching to sleuthing...Showing compassion is a crucial step…Find common ground…Tell a compelling story

References:

S. Alam, B. Johnston, J. Vitale and M. -A. Williams, "Would you trust a robot with your mental health? The interaction of emotion and logic in persuasive backfiring," 2021 30th IEEE International Conference on Robot & Human Interactive Communication (RO-MAN), Vancouver, BC, Canada, 2021, pp. 384-391, doi: 10.1109/RO-MAN50785.2021.9515385. 

Conway, L. G. III, & Schaller, M. (2005). “When authorities' commands backfire: Attributions about consensus and effects on deviant decision making”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 89(3), 311–326. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.89.3.311 

Han, Elizabeth; Yin, Dezhi; and Zhang, Han, "Chatbot Empathy in Customer Service: When It Works and When It Backfires" (2022). Special Interest Group on Computer–Human Interaction SIGHCI 2022 Proceedings. 1. https://aisel.aisnet.org/sighci2022/1  

Kim, C. H., Forcum, L., & Giebelhausen, M. (2024). “When and why do artifact emojis lead to backfire effects on consumer response?” Journal of Consumer Behaviour, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1002/cb.2323

See, Y.H.M., Valenti, G., Ho, A.Y.Y. and Tan, M.S.Q. (2013), “When message tailoring backfires: The role of initial attitudes in affect–cognition matching”. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol., 43: 570-584. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.1967 

Stibe, A., Cugelman, B. (2016). “Persuasive Backfiring: When Behavior Change Interventions Trigger Unintended Negative Outcomes”. In: Meschtscherjakov, A., De Ruyter, B., Fuchsberger, V., Murer, M., Tscheligi, M. (eds) Persuasive Technology. 2016.  vol 9638. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-31510-2_6