Emotional Denial - do facts help or hurt

Some people believe the election of (fill in the blank) was stolen.  Some people believe the earth is only 6000 years old.  Some people believe the earth is flat.  Some people believe the world is out to get them.

What is the difference?  In the last case, many people would classify that person as suffering from paranoia, as there is a  psychological term "paranoid personality disorder".  

When it comes to flat earth believers, there is a strong case to be made for the Dunning-Kruger effect,

Young Earthers are mostly driven by religious beliefs, that if the Bible is literally true, and it conflicts with science, then the Bible is the default.

When it comes to elections, it sometimes seems like it is a religious belief.  Despite mountains of evidence,  the people will stick to the belief that their candidate was robbed, just like after every close football game, the losing team will point to the officials saying they were the difference; not looking at either team and how they played.

Not being a psychologist or psychiatrist, (although I have stayed at a Holiday Inn at times), let me put out a idea, that we all are guilty of - emotional denial.

As human beings we have a hard time separating the logical side and the emotional side.  If we get too logical we separate ourselves emotionally and lose the sense of empathy for other people.  If we become too emotional, we cannot act rationally and therefore make decisions we might later regret.

That is why there are so many fact checking web sites on politics and science.  But do they have the expected effect?  Do they do anything to change people's minds from their original position, or just cement that position?

I am coming around to the idea that if we associate fact checking with people, that is like an ad hominin attack.  If people see the fact check associated with  a particular person, it is an attack on that person and because of our emotional denial, our position is not swayed.

So at best, whatever form the fact check is, it will have the following effects.

1. Not change those who believe (actually they will look at it as obvious)
2. Sway some of the people who are in the middle (who probably didn't care in the first place)
3. Just strengthen the people who are checked - pushing them further away.

In order to change someone's mind, who is suffering from emotional denial, I think you first have to get to the root cause of this denial.  The person has an emotional bank account, filled with experiences and things that they have been told, by people they trust or admire.  This bank account needs to be drained, or at least put in another account, in order for them to build up an account contrary to the first.

This is difficult.  Sometimes charismatic leaders can accomplish this, if they are not the persons who caused this in the first place.  So beliefs will be hard to break down, and in many cases should not be, as they might destroy the person.  However, if truth is the end goal......I don't remember anyone making a good argument that life will be easy.

Next - possible techniques.