Counteracting Narratives: Evidence from An Online Experiment

Can people counteract biased narratives with subsequent information? Using an online experiment where counteracting may have the best odds by design, we investigate this question by first randomly assigning subjects to read different narratives that contain the same facts, and then offering them the opportunity to acquire and process balanced arguments. We document three main findings. First, subjects shift their attitudes towards the standpoint of the randomly assigned narrative, knowing that the narrative is slanted and randomly assigned. Second, the opportunity to read additional arguments does not prompt subjects to counteract the persuasion effects of the initial narratives. Third, when evaluating subsequent arguments, participants find arguments aligned with the randomly assigned narrative more convincing. These findings remain qualitatively similar in additional treatments where the balanced arguments are provided two weeks after initial exposure to narratives. Only when we replace these arguments with the exact opposing narratives that subjects do not initially see are they able to fully counteract the effects. Taken together, our results highlight the importance of balanced and complete exposure at the outset in counteracting the influence of biased narratives.