Does Counter-Attitudinal Information Cause Backlash? Results from Three Large Survey Experiments

Author(s): 

Andrew Guess and Alexander Coppock
 

ISPS ID: 
ISPS18-025
Full citation: 
Guess, A., & Coppock, A. (n.d.). Does Counter-Attitudinal Information Cause Backlash? Results from Three Large Survey Experiments. British Journal of Political Science, 1-19. doi:10.1017/S0007123418000327. Published online: 05 November 2018.
Abstract: 
Several theoretical perspectives suggest that when individuals are exposed to counter-attitudinal evidence or arguments, their pre-existing opinions and beliefs are reinforced, resulting in a phenomenon sometimes known as ‘backlash’. This article formalizes the concept of backlash and specifies how it can be measured. It then presents the results from three survey experiments – two on Mechanical Turk and one on a nationally representative sample – that find no evidence of backlash, even under theoretically favorable conditions. While a casual reading of the literature on information processing suggests that backlash is rampant, these results indicate that it is much rarer than commonly supposed.
Supplemental information: 

Link to article here.

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Publication date: 
2018
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