The SJPP Blog will have a renewed focus on presenting interesting graphical information and a recent study by political scientist Brendan Nyhan (and Duke grad) suggests that we might be on to something. The post speaks to the power of graphs in changing people's minds about factual misinformation, with the study by Nyhan and co-author Jason Reifler ultimately finding that , "Graphical corrections are also found to successfully reduce incorrect beliefs among potentially resistant subjects and to perform better than an equivalent textual correction." So the next time you find yourself locked in an argument with someone and they just don't seem to be listening to reason, consider helping them look at reason instead.
The full pdf of the study is available here.