Truth by Repetition: Explanations and Implications

By C. Unkelbach, Alex Koch, Rita R. Silva, Teresa Garcia-Marques. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 2019

148 citations recorded by the source corpus.

People believe repeated information more than novel information; they show a repetition-induced truth effect. In a world of “alternative facts,” “fake news,” and strategic information management, understanding this effect is highly important. We first review explanations of the effect based on frequency, recognition, familiarity, and coherent references. On the basis of the latter explanation, we discuss the relations of these explanations. We then discuss implications of truth by repetition for the maintenance of false beliefs and ways to change potentially harmful false beliefs (e.g., “Vaccination causes autism”), illustrating that the truth-by-repetition phenomenon not only is of theoretical interest but also has immediate practical relevance.

Subfields: Cognitive Neuroscience, Sociology and Political Science, Philosophy

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1302bf5377d40bf86016632f9c9ab35eba9d1b03

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Cognitive Neuroscience

1. David G. Rand
2. Gordon Pennycook
3. Neil Shah
4. Srijan Kumar
5. Nicholas C. Dias

In Sociology and Political Science

1. David G. Rand
2. Gordon Pennycook
3. Nicholas C. Dias
4. J. Pierre
5. S. Michael Gaddis
6. S. van der Linden
7. J. Roozenbeek
8. Jesse J. Chandler

In Philosophy

1. David G. Rand
2. Gordon Pennycook

Citations in the corpus

• The Psychology of Fake News. (2021, background): “Thus, feelings of familiarity and, possibly, processing fluency per se ([52,53]; (but see [54]) likely contributes to increased belief in false claims.”