The backfire effect seems to be heavily exaggerated - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2819073 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstra

The backfire effect seems to be heavily exaggerated - https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2819073 https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2819073 And just think about how the research is done. "Hello conservative test subject. Here's a 1 page article explaining why Climate Change is a real problem". What impact do you think it will have? How about this. Dear liberal, belief in a just world is psychologically healthy, and belief in an unjust world is linked to mental health issues, where's a wikipedia link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis#Current_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just-world_hypothesis#Current_... It seems likely to me that a couple of pithy arguments are unlikely to change a core belief, but is very likely to create some short-term pushback. If they do change a core belief then I think it will have stronger and longer-lasting impacts than the push-back. I also suspect there's a delay - arguments might take a while to sink in.