Sun 4/7 @ 9:30AM
If it seems to you that an increasing number of people are impervious to facts and information if it contradicts their deeply held beliefs, perhaps you’re not imagining things. It’s called the “Backfire Theory,” a form of confirmation bias in which a person clings to their preconceived beliefs even more strongly when challenged by actual evidence.
It’s why people can believe that child sex rings are being run out of the basement of a pizza shop that doesn’t have a basement, or that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and George Soros are secretly colluding with “the deep state” to overthrow Donald Trump. Or that 20 sets of parents are only pretending their first graders were slaughtered by a gun-wielding murderers who invaded their elementary school.
Long-time Plain Dealer columnist Brent Larkin will be at the Unitarian-Universalist Congregation of Cleveland in Shaker Heights to talk about “Politics, Elections and the Backfire Theory,” and how this inability of some people to adjust their beliefs based on an intake of facts impacts our ability to address key political and policy issues, and perhaps, the ability of progressives and conservatives to work together.
It’s free and open to all.
Shaker Heights, OH 44122