Political scientists say the ‘truth’ in politics is partisan

As we enter the home stretch for the Aug. 3 primaries political scientists are talking about their findings related to an “informed” citizenry. American democracy is based on the concept that a well informed voting public will make the correct decisions about who to elect to office. But studies over the last decade or so show that getting the voting public “informed” may be more difficult than once thought.

The problem? The more convinced one is of the “facts” the less likely they are to accept objective information which contradicts their beliefs, reports The Boston Globe.

Recently, a few political scientists have begun to discover a human tendency deeply discouraging to anyone with faith in the power of information. It’s this: Facts don’t necessarily have the power to change our minds. In fact, quite the opposite. In a series of studies in 2005 and 2006, researchers at the University of Michigan found that when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in news stories, they rarely changed their minds. In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts, they found, were not curing misinformation. Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.

This response has been labeled “backfire,” and we can expect to see a lot of this in the coming weeks as politicians throw out claims which are challenged by the facts of the past– whether past votes, past speeches or past literature drops.