Presenting Facts, Logic and Your Reasoning May Lead to the 'Backfire Effect'
Why that approach often fails within stalemate conflicts and what is a smarter, better, safer path to persuasion
When people are communicating and seemingly making no headway in persuading or fully convincing others about the flaws in their thinking and argument, the result is usually deeper frustration, annoyance or anger.
What’s often happening that is not understood is the backfire effect. It’s helpful to realize, at bare minimum, what it is, why it emerges, how fruitless it is and what could get you past the obstacles. That way, when it happens in discussions or fights that you are having or observing you recognize it and know why that disagreement or stalemate and the hopelessness, anger or rage that can accompany it are ruling.
Then you or other people can pivot for a more smarter, higher-probability approach.
Let’s put into print what Annetta Wilson of Annetta Wilson Media Training and Success Coaching verbalized in general above about conflict and the backfire effect, regardless of the topic of disagreement or anger:
“When someone has an entrenched position and you try to convince them of the opposite (in thinking), using studies, data, anecdotes, volumes of research that shows (them) that ‘your position is wrong, this is correct,’ instead of saying, ‘thank you, I really appreciate the fact that you just blew my perception totally out of the water and now I’m going to change,’ what actually happens is that they dig their heels in deeper because people would rather die ‘right (correct in their mind)' than to look at the possibility of freedom of seeing things a different way.”
She adds that when we forcefully do this what we are doing instead in most situations is helping that person or people, in any relationship (personal or professional), justify their position in their emotions and psychology, strengthen their argument, leading them to believe even more that they are “right” where they further strengthen their resistance.
Of course, we didn’t set out to accomplish that, did we? That’s the last thing we want to do. That’s what usually happens, however, much to our disappointment or upset.
What if we made adjustments to increase the likelihood of our success of being respected and persuasive and convincing? Wouldn’t that make us smarter and better?
What if instead we did something more skillful, something like gaining understanding about the other person or people.
In “If You Want to Convince Someone, Start by Mapping Their Mind; First, understand what they think and what they value. Then argue,” Radu Atanasiu, Ph.D. who is an associate dean at Bucharest International School of Management, talked about a “play” or practice that could work if we exercise poise, patience, curiosity, empathy and listen and observe accurately before proceeding with our argument.
“Those we need to convince—the (child), the colleague, the boss—are immune to our valid argument because, until now, we argued based on how we view the situation and on what we value. Unless we map their puzzle—what they think and what they believe in—and craft completely new arguments that fit that puzzle, our arguments will just function as venting devices,” Atanasiu explains and teaches us.
I’m not sure how many of us knew this, at least as he informs us so vividly. If we remember when people have tried to convince us of what we don’t believe or want to believe and think, “this person or these people don’t get me at all, understand why this is important to me,” we might get it. We just have to remember it when we hope to or need to persuade or convince other people.
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