The Confirmation Bias: The Backfire Effect

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The backfire effect occurs when correcting a belief proves to be counterproductive. When there is evidence against people’s beliefs, people reject that evidence and believe even more strongly in their initial beliefs, according to the backfire effect. The confirmation bias is conceptually related to the backfire effect because people want to be correct and this leads them to find evidence that supports their view. People do not look for information that disconfirms their opinion so when others try to correct people’s beliefs, their plan backfires. People also tend to remember information that supports their belief and forget information that disconfirms their belief.

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