Where did you hear that?

As discussed last week once you hear a lie three times you start to believe that it is true...

http://pjlehrer.blogspot.com/2020/08/if-you-tell-lie-three-times-people-will.html

So that means who or what you listen to matters a great deal.  Choose your sources properly or you could be believing all sorts of outlandish things.

A new study from Pew Research found that Americans who get their news from social media are less knowledgeable about a wide range of events and issues in the news such as the Covid-19 outbreak.  But at the same time they are more aware of the conspiracy theory that powerful people intentionally planned the Covid-19 pandemic.  (Mitchell, Jurowitz, Oliphant & Shearer, 2020)

It's not surprising that the disengaged are more likely to believe fake news.  Fake news spreads faster and wider than news based on actual facts.  And people getting their news from social media are more disengaged and therefore more likely to only skim the headlines.  (Lohr, 2020)

But they do need to be careful, least they end up drinking bleach.

Lohr, S. (2018, March 8) It’s True: False News Spreads Faster and Wider. And Humans Are to Blame. nytimes.com.  Retrieved September 1, 2020, from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/technology/twitter-fake-news-research.html

Mitchell, A., Jurowitz, M., Oliphant, J. & Shearer, E. (2020, July 30)  Americans Who Mainly Get Their News on Social Media Are Less Engaged, Less Knowledgeable.  Pew Research Center.  Retrieved September 1, 2020, from  https://www.journalism.org/2020/07/30/americans-who-mainly-get-their-news-on-social-media-are-less-engaged-less-knowledgeable/

If you tell a lie three times people will believe it's true.

Humans aren't properly wired to deal with lies.  From an evolutionary standpoint it wasn't necessary.  Truth was based on our own experiences and actions.  We knew what we heard, saw and did, because we experienced it ourselves.

But now that our experiences have become mostly virtual we are reliant on what others tell us about events. And that's a problem because our brains mistake familiarity for truth.  The more often we hear something the more likely we are to believe it's true.

Research shows that after the third time we hear a lie we believe it's true, even if it contradicts a previously held belief.  And even if it is labeled as false. (Fazio, Brashier, Payne & Marsh, 2015)

It's no wonder then that once the polls showed Trump losing he doubled down on his criticism of mail-in voting despite the fact that he himself votes by mail.  And, as his numbers have continued to sink he has upped the ante to claim that if he doesn't win the election it will be because of fraud. 

You can expect him to keep repeating that lie over and over again until November 3rd.  Because he knows that if he does, some people will be fooled.

Will you be one of them?

Fazio, L., Brashier, N., Payne, B. & Marsh, E.  (2015, August 24)  Knowledge Does Not Protect Against Illusory Truth.  Journal of Experimental Psychology.  Retrieved August 26, 2020, from https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/features/xge-0000098.pdf

If you tell a lie often enough people will think it's true.

Of all the things that I learned in 2017, this one surprised me the most.  Researchers call it the Illusory Truth Effect. 

The seminal study on the subject was done in 1977, so it's not exactly new news.  And, the basic effect has been studied and replicated dozens of times since then.  But the recent emergence of a variety of strong held beliefs based on falsehoods has led to people to take a closer look at the phenomenon.

The bottom line is that repetition of a statement makes it easier to process relative to new statements.  This leads people to the sometimes false conclusion that the initial statement is more truthful.  The more times something is repeated the more we perceive it as true.  Even if it isn't.  (Fazio, Brashier, Payne & Marsh, 2015)

Essentially what is happening is that we are mistaking familiar for true, because the more times we hear something the more comfortable we become with it.  Then our brains convince us to believe it is true because we feel it is true.  (Tsipursky, 2017)

Knowing all this I probably shouldn't have been surprised when I read last week that 44% of Republicans think Trump repealed Obamacare. (Kliff, 2017) 

And yet, I still was.

Fazio, L., Brashier, N., Payne, B., Marsch, E. (2015, August 24)  Knowledge Does Not Protect Against Illusory Truth.  Journal of Experimental Psychology. Retrieved January 3, 2018, from

https://apa.org/pubs/journals/features/xge-0000098.pdf

Tsipursky, G. (2017, October 27)  A brain science expert explains how to deprogram truth-denying Trump supporters.  rawstory.com.  retrieved January 3, 2018, from

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/a-brain-science-expert-explains-how-to-deprogram-truth-denying-trump-supporters/

Kliff, S. (2017, December 27)  44 Percent of Republicans think Trump repealed Obamacare.  vox.com.  Retrieved January 3, 2018, from

https://www.vox.com/2017/12/27/16822748/republicans-trump-repeal-obamacare