Recent research published in Journal of Social Psychology suggests that presenting people with exaggerated arguments in favor of a controversial topic may actually cause them to oppose that topic even more strongly. When researchers tested this persuasion technique on attitudes toward prostitution, they found that exposure to irrationally supportive messages tended to reduce favorable views of the issue and indirectly increase support for restrictive policies. These findings provide evidence that unconventional communication strategies can change opinions on moral and social issues.
Changing deeply ingrained social beliefs remains a major challenge in psychology. Humans naturally process information defensively. When we encounter facts that contradict our existing views, we tend to evaluate the evidence in a way that protects our current opinions. Because of this defensive reaction, direct attempts to persuade people using counterarguments often fail to change their minds.
In response, psychologists developed a technique called paradoxical thinking. This method involves presenting a message that agrees with a person’s general stance but exaggerates it to an extreme or absurd degree. The purpose is to encourage the listener to reject extreme conclusions. By distancing themselves from absurd arguments, people may soften their initial position.
Psychologists sometimes refer to this process as cognitive unfreezing. This refers to a temporary state of mental freedom in which people can reconsider their previous beliefs without feeling directly attacked. Most past experiments on paradoxical thinking focused on political disagreements and conflicts between groups. The authors of the new study wanted to test whether this technique could influence opinions on a highly polarizing and morally loaded topic.
Uri Lifshin, a senior researcher at the Israel Center for Addiction and Mental Health and the Department of Psychology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, explained the origins of the study. “Daniela and Omer came up with this idea during a ‘Psychology and Social Change’ course where students try to apply various social psychological theories to promote social change,” Rifshin said, referring to co-authors Daniela Jaffe and Omer Kochav. “We were exploring the idea of using paradoxical thinking as an intervention in different social areas.”
Attitudes toward prostitution vary widely and are deeply tied to personal morality. Some see prostitution as a consensual economic activity, while others see it as inherently harmful and exploitative. People may resist standard negative messages because arguments against prostitution can feel like a threat to personal freedom. To explore this dynamic, scientists designed three experiments to see how readers respond to absurd pro-prostitution messages.
In the first experiment, researchers recruited an international sample of 231 adults through the social media platform Reddit. This group consisted of 114 men, 105 women, and 12 individuals who reported different genders ranging in age from 18 to 66 years. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of four short articles about prostitution.
All articles contained the same factual information regarding global prevalence, gender distribution, and reported psychological harm. The only difference between the two sentences was the discussion of the conclusion. This mildly paradoxical article argued that prostitution should be allowed simply because it gives women an easy way to make money.
This extremely paradoxical article took a more drastic position, arguing that prostitution should continue because men enjoy it and derive psychological benefits from it. Negative message articles conclude that prostitution causes serious harm and must be stopped. Finally, neutral articles presented only basic facts without presenting normative conclusions.
After reading the assigned text, participants completed a questionnaire measuring attitudes toward prostitution, including beliefs about the legality of the act. They were also asked if they would be willing to sign a petition to make prostitution illegal, although the petition is fictitious. The results showed that moderately paradoxical messages were successful in reducing positive views of prostitution.
Participants who read mildly pro-prostitution articles reported less favorable attitudes toward prostitution compared to participants who read neutral or negative articles. Extreme paradoxical texts did not reliably differ from the comparison conditions in this first sample. Although the message did not directly cause significant changes in petition signatures, the researchers found an indirect effect.
Moderately paradoxical texts changed underlying attitudes. These adjusted perspectives predicted greater willingness to sign anti-prostitution petitions. This suggests that the technique works primarily by changing internal opinions before influencing external behavior.
The scientists then conducted a second experiment to see if these patterns could be replicated in a different cultural setting. They recruited 103 Hebrew-speaking Israelis from Reddit. These include 88 men, 14 women and one person of another gender, aged between 18 and 47. This time, the researchers simplified the setup by removing the neutral article condition.
Participants were randomly assigned to read either a moderately paradoxical message, an extreme paradoxical message, or a standard negative message, all translated into Hebrew. Following the reading assignment, the sample answered the same questions about their views on prostitution and their willingness to sign a petition. In this Israeli sample, extreme paradoxical conditions were found to be most effective.
Participants exposed to highly exaggerated messages reported significantly less favorable attitudes toward prostitution than the moderate and negative groups. The success of extreme messages in this context caught researchers off guard.
“We initially did not expect that a more extreme version of the absurd paradoxical message about prostitution (that, despite all its harms, prostitution should be legal because men enjoy it) would be more effective than a moderate paradoxical message (that, despite all its harms, prostitution should be legal because it provides women with relatively easy opportunities to get money),” Rifshin told Cypost. “I was surprised that so many people accepted the latter statement.”
Similar to the first experiment, extreme paradoxical text had no direct effect on petition signatures. Instead, by first changing participants’ attitudes, they indirectly increased their willingness to sign.
In the third experiment, the researchers wanted to test the psychological mechanisms underlying paradoxical thinking. They hypothesized that the technique worked precisely because people actively opposed irrational messages. They recruited another group of Reddit users, and the final sample was 97 adults between the ages of 18 and 58. This group included 72 men, 23 women, and two non-binary individuals.
Participants were randomly divided into two groups and read either an extreme paradoxical message or a standard negative message. They then rated the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the article they had just read, completed an attitudinal survey, and answered petition questions. The researchers found that participants agreed significantly less with paradoxical messages than with negative messages.
When analyzing psychological pathways, scientists noticed clear patterns in paradoxical groups. Strong opposition to absurd pro-prostitution articles predicted less favorable attitudes toward prostitution. These declines in favorable attitudes predicted an increased likelihood of supporting restrictive policy measures.
In the negative message group, consent functioned in a standard persuasive manner, with consenting to the text reducing favorable views of prostitution. This difference in pathways provides evidence that paradoxical thinking works by specifically causing rejection of exaggerated ideas. The overall trend became more pronounced when data from all three experiments, representing a total of 431 participants, were combined. The combined analysis showed that the extreme paradoxical manipulation had a strong indirect effect on behavioral intention to sign an anti-prostitution petition.
“Our findings show that paradoxical mind manipulation may be more effective than ordinary direct persuasion in influencing attitudes and behavior,” Lifshin said. “This highlights the potential for this theory to be used in a variety of fields.”
However, this strategy is not without its drawbacks. “Applying paradoxical thinking interventions as a persuasion technique has both potential and risk,” Rifshin added. “The key is to consider the sensitivity and diversity of each situation.”
This study has several limitations, including a modest sample size and a large number of participants who had to be excluded because they failed attention checks. Additionally, the gender distribution in the second and third experiments was heavily skewed towards males. This imbalance makes it difficult to know how women will respond to similar messages.
Lifshin pointed out that the findings need context. “First, the effects of paradoxical interventions vary depending on factors such as content and extremity, so their effectiveness can be dangerous,” he noted. “If not properly tailored or delivered to the wrong audience, messages that are too subtle (or too exaggerated, as found in previous research) can strengthen rather than undermine target attitudes.”
“Paradoxical thinking should therefore be treated as a theory-based approach, which requires careful theoretical adjustment, ethical considerations, and testing before being applied in practice,” Lifshin said.
The authors also clarified their position on the subject of the study. “Secondly, the topic of legalizing prostitution itself is very sensitive and complex,” Rifshin added. “While there are many negative aspects to prostitution, we don’t necessarily see it as completely negative, and we don’t think criminalizing sex work is the answer.”
Looking to the future, the researchers hope to test the technology in other fields as well. “We hope that the paradoxical thinking intervention can be applied to a variety of areas,” Lifshin said. “For example, it could be tested as a way to reduce stigma or promote environmentally friendly behavior.”
“We are currently considering testing paradoxical thinking interventions in the context of addiction (i.e., to reduce motivation for substance use and other addictive behaviors),” he said.
“We hope this study will stimulate further research into the application of paradoxical thinking in important areas and highlight the need for what Tim Wilson and Greg Walton call ‘smart interventions,’ theory-based interventions to change attitudes,” said Rifshin.
The study, “Paradoxical beliefs and attitudes toward prostitution: Preliminary experimental results,” was authored by Daniela Jaffe, Omar Kochav, and Uli Rifshin.
