Information Processing and the Perseverance of Discredited Self-Perceptions

Fleming, Jan E.; Arrowood, A. John

doi:10.1177/014616727900500216

Cited by 89 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 5 publications

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“…It is possible that during this time, the participants thought about the misinformation and used it to activate similar considerations. For example, Fleming and Arrowood (1979) find that when the misinformation is corrected immediately, belief perseverance effects are minimized.…”

Section: Experiments 2: Belief Time and Motivated Reasoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Belief Echoes: The Persistent Effects of Corrected Misinformation

Thorson

2015

Political Communication

455

304

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The omnipresence of political misinformation in the today's media environment raises serious concerns about citizens' ability make fully informed decisions. In response to these concerns, the last few years have seen a renewed commitment to journalistic and institutional fact-checking. The assumption of these efforts is that successfully correcting misinformation will prevent it from affecting citizens' attitudes. However, through a series of experiments, I find that exposure to a piece of negative political information persists in shaping attitudes even after the information has been successfully discredited. A correction--even when it is fully believed--does not eliminate the effects of misinformation on attitudes. These lingering attitudinal effects, which I call "belief echoes," are created even when the misinformation is corrected immediately, arguably the gold standard of journalistic fact-checking.Belief echoes can be affective or cognitive. Affective belief echoes are created through a largely unconscious process in which a piece of negative information has a stronger impact on evaluations than does its correction. Cognitive belief echoes, on the other hand, are created through a conscious cognitive process during which a person recognizes that a particular negative claim about a candidate is false, but reasons that its presence increases the likelihood of other negative information being true. Experimental results suggest that while affective belief echoes are created across party lines, cognitive belief echoes are more likely when a piece of misinformation reinforces a person's pre-existing political views.The existence of belief echoes provide an enormous incentive for politicians to strategically spread false information with the goal of shaping public opinion on key issues. However, results from two more experiments show that politicians also suffer consequences for making false claims, an encouraging finding that has the potential to constrain the behavior of politicians presented with the opportunity to strategically create belief echoes. While the existence of belief echoes may also provide a disincentive for the media to engage in serious fact-checking, evidence also suggests that such efforts can also have positive consequences by increasing citizens' trust in media. Degree Type DissertationDegree Name

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Section: Experiments 2: Belief Time and Motivated Reasoningmentioning

confidence: 99%

Belief Echoes: The Persistent Effects of Corrected Misinformation

Thorson

2015

Political Communication

455

304

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show abstract

“…There is abundant evidence showing that integrative encoding impairs discounting. Discounting is more successful when receivers are prevented from elaborating on the message than when they are not prevented from doing so (Fleming & Arrowood, 1979;Schul & Burnstein, 1985), and is less successful when receivers are induced to encode the to-be-used and to-be-ignored messages integratively (Anderson, Lepper, & Ross, 1980;Schul & Mazursky, 1990). Our analysis suggests that this may depend on the way individuals interpret the instructions to discount a message.…”

Section: Negation Coding and Message Discountingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“I am not guilty” vs “I am innocent”: Successful negation may depend on the schema used for its encoding

Mayo

Schul

Burnstein

2004

Journal of Experimental Social Psychology

281

210

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“…When participants receive standard outcome debrieWng, they probably Wnd themselves contemplating or ruminating about their "real score" on what they have been led to believe is a valid test. This curiosity about their real score may lead them to use their assigned score as a subjective anchor point with which to estimate their real score (Wegner et al, 1985), and the constructed score representation could lead to further thoughts that reXect explanations of the hypothetical score (Fleming & Arrowood, 1979;Ross et al, 1975). These types of thoughts would be expected to yield perseverance in self-perceptions.…”

Section: Studymentioning

confidence: 99%