Across 6,000 subjects corrections reduce but never fully eliminate misinformation
Evidence
More generally, the continued influence of misinformation has been demonstrated across a wide variety of issues, not just fires in warehouses. A recent meta-analysis (a study which pools findings from many individual experiments) looked at thirty-two experiments involving over 6,000 people across four decades and found evidence for a modest but consistent continued-influence effect. In other words, when we look at this effect across many people and situations, we find that corrections do help reduce misinformation but they do not fully eliminate it: people continue to retrieve false details from memory once exposed to a falsehood. The effect appears to get more pronounced the more misinformation is repeated and the longer it is held in memory without correction. The infection worsens. — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 254
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Awareness of a correction does not stop misinformation from infecting related memories; Correcting misinformation may be ineffective because people continue using it — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 249; People keep discredited beliefs when corrections leave no replacement explanation — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof: Why Misinformation Infects…, 277 (+2 more)
Broader Connections
- Awareness of a correction does not stop misinformation from infecting related memories
#expands(0.85) - Correcting misinformation may be ineffective because people continue using it
#expands(0.82) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 249 - Misinformation hijacks cognitive machinery and resists correction like a virus
#expands(0.80) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 22 - People keep discredited beliefs when corrections leave no replacement explanation
#qualifies(0.78) — Sander van der Linden, Foolproof, 277 - Factual correction of conspiracism usually fails or backfires
#complicates(0.72) — Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum, A Lot of People Are Saying, 119