The Psychology of Debunking and "Successful Debiasing"

The claim is that if we are careful about how we talk to people, we can be far more successful in getting them to change their mind about the stupid and harmful beliefs that they have. I believe this is extremely true, and poorly understood by skeptics.



Prof. Stephan Lewandowsky has been at the forefront of this for a long time. I first came across his work from a well-known climate science site that produced a "debunking handbook" ebook



http://ift.tt/1HysC7C



He has also published detailed research on this.



Abstract

Quote:

We next move to misinformation at the level of the individual, and review the cognitive factors that often render misinformation resistant to correction. We consider how people assess the truth of statements and what makes people believe certain things but not others. We look at people's memory for misinformation and answer the questions of why retractions of misinformation are so ineffective in memory updating and why efforts to retract misinformation can even backfire and, ironically, increase misbelief. Though ideology and personal worldviews can be major obstacles for debiasing, there nonetheless are a number of effective techniques for reducing the impact of misinformation, and we pay special attention to these factors that aid in debiasing.We conclude by providing specific recommendations for the debunking of misinformation.

Full Text



I know that I don't use these principles as much as I should. I should really reevaluate some of how I communicate...



Any thoughts? Has anyone heard of similar science done on this subject from other researchers or authors?

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1avEfC9