Oh, Absolutely.  Cognitive Bias / Confirmation Bias and all of these are very real.  That's why the Overton Window has to be slowly moved.  Can everyone fit in it? No - but you can chip away at it slow.  This is the same tactic shills use where they constantly try to sully momentum and create a vitriolic discourse so the "reasonable person" bows out.  They don't care as long as they can marginally thin ranks.  We do the same with memeatic warfare openly on twatter and the like.  Every day I am like a preacher finding the perfect methods to drop information to folks to plant seeds.  It works.