Blog #9 EOTO Illusory Truth Effect

 It is false but you believe it is true. It is the Illusory truth effect. The effect was found during a study at the universities of Villanova and Temple in 1977.  More specifically, studying The Illusory Truth Effect has found that, "Repeated information is often perceived as more truthful than new information. This finding is known as the illusory truth effect, and it is typically thought to occur because repetition increases processing fluency. Because fluency and truth are frequently correlated in the real world, people learn to use processing fluency as a marker for truthfulness.”. In simple terms, the more we hear something, the more likely we are to believe that it is true. The more we hear the words "Russia, Russia, Russia", "Russia did this", "Russia, did that", we are much more likely to believe that Russia Russia Russia actually did do something, even if there is little strong evidence that they did. 

The more we hear a claim, the more likely we are to buy into whatever is being sold, even if it seems outrageous. More exactly, people are almost always more likely than not to rate statements that they have viewed before as being true, no matter whether it is or is not. Even more than this though, studying a subject does not even safeguard against The Illusory Truth Effect. Even those who took 3rd-grade science class and learned that spiders have eight legs could be fooled into (or have a higher likelihood of) believing that spiders have nine legs if they are given multiple sources claiming that spiders do in fact have nine legs.

For example, during the 2016 presidential campaign, there was online posting about how Hillary Clinton was running a child abuse sex trafficking ring with her at the time campaign chief John Podesta out of a pizza restaurant named Comet Ping Pong. There was never any real merit and no real reason to believe such outlandish claims. On December 4th, 2016 a man from North Carolina went into the pizza restaurant with a rifle and revolver, and attempted to free the children he believed were being held, and in the process fired a shot inside the building.

The Illusory Truth Effect can be described simply as "Fake News". "Fake News" is sometimes a word that turns others off, but it is very real, and can also be very convincing. Fake news is incredibly prevalent in the United States, with many Americans believing, protesting, and voting based on things that never even happened. Where there is fake news there is the Illusory Truth Effect. No matter how prepared someone believes they are, the illusory truth effect can get to them. Simply seeing something that is false, even if someone knows it is false, will raise the likelihood that they believe it may be true, even if just by five percent! Fake news and the Illusory Truth Effect can become a thing of the past, but only if we step up as a society and stop publishing hyper-reactionary, clickbait, sometimes entirely false claims, only in the intent of profiting both politically and financially. Fake news and subsequently the Illusory Truth Effect can become history if we as a society put our values in truth, and not political or financial gain.