Does counter-attitudinal information cause backlash? Results from three large survey experiments
Guess and Coppock define backlash as people who meet evidence against their view holding it more strongly afterwards. Across three survey experiments, two on online worker samples and one on a nationally representative sample, they found no sign of backlash, even in conditions set up to make it most likely, and concluded that it is much less common than the information-processing literature often implies. Reading depth: abstract only.
Guess and Coppock define backlash as people who meet evidence against their view holding it more strongly afterwards. Across three survey experiments, two on online worker samples and one on a nationally representative sample, they found no sign of backlash, even in conditions set up to make it most likely, and concluded that it is much less common than the information-processing literature often implies. Reading depth: abstract only.
Written from the abstract, Yale ISPS record, 2026-10-31.
What our sources record
Recorded when this source was checked, figures included, with page references and quotation marks removed.
Guess, A., & Coppock, A. (2020). Does counter-attitudinal information cause backlash? Results from three large survey experiments. British Journal of Political Science, 50(4), 1497-1515. doi:10.1017/S0007123418000327 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123418000327