Mitigating the Backfire Effect Using Pacing and Leading

Qi Yang,Khizar Qureshi,Tauhid Zaman

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-93413-2_14

Abstract

AbstractOnline social networks create echo-chambers where people are infrequently exposed to opposing opinions. Even if such exposure occurs, the persuasive effect may be minimal or nonexistent. Recent studies have shown that exposure to opposing opinions causes a backfire effect, where people become more steadfast in their original beliefs. We conducted a longitudinal field experiment on Twitter to test methods that mitigate the backfire effect while exposing people to opposing opinions. Our subjects were Twitter users with anti-immigration sentiment. The backfire effect was defined as an increase in the usage frequency of extreme anti-immigration language in the subjects’ posts. We used automated Twitter accounts, or bots, to apply different treatments to the subjects. One bot posted only pro-immigration content, which we refer to as arguing. Another bot initially posted anti-immigration content, then gradually posted more pro-immigration content, which we refer to as pacing and leading. We also applied a contact treatment in conjunction with the messaging based methods, where the bots liked the subjects’ posts. We found that the most effective treatment was a combination of pacing and leading with contact. The least effective treatment was arguing with contact. In fact, arguing with contact consistently showed a backfire effect relative to a control group. These findings have many limitations, but they still have important implications for the study of political polarization, the backfire effect, and persuasion in online social networks.KeywordsSocial networksSocial mediaPolitical polarizationComputational social science

Highlights

One natural persuasion method is to present an argument to the audience supporting a target opinion or position
Classical opinion dynamics models suggest that repeated arguments will cause the audience’s opinion to shift toward the target position (DeGroot 1974, DeMarzo et al 2003, Golub and Jackson 2010)
Empirical research has shown that when opinions differ greatly, making an argument can cause the opinions of the audience to shift away from the argument (Lord et al 1979, Nyhan and Reifler 2010, Bail et al 2018)

Summary

Introduction

In many situations one may want to persuade an audience to change their behavior or shift their underlying opinion. It would be useful to have a method that allows one to present arguments in online social networks in a manner that mitigates the backfire effect and the usage of extreme language. We test another messaging method we refer to as pacing and leading which is based on the idea that persuasion is more effective if there is some sort of bond or connection between arguer and audience This method begins by having the arguer emotionally pace the audience by agreeing with their opinion on the persuasion topic. This method has the arguer like the social media posts of its audience This interaction can serve as a form of social contact in an online setting and potentially lead to more effective persuasion when combined with messaging based methods. It has been found that a person’s persuasive ability is strengthened if the audience likes this person (Burger et al 2001)

Experiment Design

Results

Discussion and Conclusion