“What’s the best way to persuade people whose beliefs stand in the way of the facts?
“…Researchers Brendan Nyhan from Dartmouth University and Jason Reifler from Georgia State considered that question in a context where convictions tend to be especially resistant to facts: politics.
“They ran experiments where they presented people with information that contradicted their political attitudes.
“They deliberately chose topics that were highly emotional – highly polarizing issues that make people really dig in their heels.
“…The least effective approach was explaining the facts in words. Building up subjects’ self-esteem didn’t work very well either.
“The most effective of the three techniques was simply presenting the information in a simple chart…”
