Hostname: page-component-6dbcb7884d-q4sxc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-13T14:50:49.064Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Displacing Misinformation about Events: An Experimental Test of Causal Corrections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2015

Brendan Nyhan  and
Jason Reifler
Brendan Nyhan
Affiliation:
Department of Government, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA; e-mail: nyhan@dartmouth.edu
Jason Reifler
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, University of Exeter, Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom; e-mail: J.Reifler@exeter.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Misinformation can be very difficult to correct and may have lasting effects even after it is discredited. One reason for this persistence is the manner in which people make causal inferences based on available information about a given event or outcome. As a result, false information may continue to influence beliefs and attitudes even after being debunked if it is not replaced by an alternate causal explanation. We test this hypothesis using an experimental paradigm adapted from the psychology literature on the continued influence effect and find that a causal explanation for an unexplained event is significantly more effective than a denial even when the denial is backed by unusually strong evidence. This result has significant implications for how to most effectively counter misinformation about controversial political events and outcomes.

Keywords

Misinformationmisperceptionscorrections
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Experimental Political Science , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , Spring 2015 , pp. 81 - 93
Copyright
Copyright © The Experimental Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Associated Press. 2002. “Gary Condit Loses Primary to Former Protege Cardoza.” Grand Rapids Press (March 6): A2.Google Scholar
Associated Press. 2013. “Lawmaker Won't Face Contribution Probe.” Monterey County Herald (December 30). (http://www.montereyherald.com/general-news/20131230/lawmaker-wont-face-contribution-probe), accessed December 5, 2014.Google Scholar
Barakat, M. 2010. “Chandra Levy Verdict: Suspect Found Guilty in 2001 Death of DC Intern.” Associated Press (November 22, 2010).Google Scholar
Baquet, D., and Gerth, J.. 1992. “Lawmaker's Defense of B.C.C.I. Went Beyond Speech in Senate.” New York Times (August 26, 1992).Google Scholar
Bullock, J. 2007. “Experiments on Partisanship and Public Opinion: Party Cues, False Beliefs, and Bayesian Updating.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Stanford University.Google Scholar
Cobb, M. D., Nyhan, B., and Reifler, J.. 2013. “Beliefs Don't Always Persevere: How Political Figures Are Punished When Positive Information About Them Is Discredited.” Political Psychology 34 (3): 307–326.Google Scholar
Duflo, E., Glennerster, R., and Kremer, M.. 2007. “Using Randomization in Development Economics Research: A Toolkit.” Handbook of Development Economics 4: 3895–3962.Google Scholar
Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., and Apai, J.. 2011. “Terrorists Brought Down the Plane!—No, Actually it Was a Technical Fault: Processing Corrections of Emotive Information.” Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64:2, 283–310.Google Scholar
Gerber, A. S., and Green, D. P.. 2012. Field Experiments: Design, Analysis, and Interpretation. New York: W. W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Johnson, H., and Seifert, C.. 1994. “Sources of the Continued Influence Effect: When Misinformation in Memory Affects Later Inferences.” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 20 (6): 1420–1436.Google Scholar
Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K. H., Seifert, C. M., Schwarz, N., and Cook, J.. 2012. “Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing.” Psychological Science in the Public Interest 13 (3): 106–131.Google Scholar
Lizza, R. 2014. “Crossing Christie.” The New Yorker (April 14): 40–51.Google Scholar
Maddux, M. 2004. “McGreevey Aide Cleared in Parole; Had no Role in Mobster's Release.” The Record (March 2): A03.Google Scholar
Moore, R. T. 2012. “Multivariate Continuous Blocking to Improve Political Science Experiments.” Political Analysis 20 (4): 460–479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyhan, B., and Reifler, J.. 2010. “When Corrections Fail: The Persistence of Political Misperceptions.” Political Behavior 32 (2): 303–330.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nyhan, B., and Reifler, J.. 2012. “Misinformation and Fact-Checking: Research Findings from Social Science.” New America Foundation Media Policy Initiative Research Paper.Google Scholar
Nyhan, B., Reifler, J., and Ubel, P.. 2013. “The Hazards of Correcting Myths About health care Reform.” Medical Care 51 (2): 127–132.Google Scholar
Oliphant, J. 2011. “Shirley Sherrod suing Breitbart.” Los Angeles Times (February 15): A13.Google Scholar
Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. 2012. “On Eve of Foreign Debate, Growing Pessimism about Arab Spring Aftermath” Poll conducted October 12–14, 2014. (http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-questionnaires/10-18-12%20Foreign%20topline%20for%20release.pdf), accessed March 24, 2014.Google Scholar
Rivers, D. Unpublished manuscript. “Sample Matching: Representative Sampling from Internet Panels.” (http://psfaculty.ucdavis.edu/bsjjones/rivers.pdf), accessed March 21, 2014.Google Scholar
Ross, L., Lepper, M., and Hubbard, M.. 1975. “Perseverance in Self-Perception and Social perception: Biased Attributional Processes in the Debriefing Paradigm.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 32: 880–892.Google Scholar
Tapper, J., and Kahn, H.. 2010. “White House Apologizes to Shirley Sherrod, Ag Secretary Offers Her New Job.” ABCNews.com (July 21, 2010).Google Scholar
Wegner, D. M., Wenzlaff, R., Kerker, R. M., and Beattie, A. E.. 1981. “Incrimination Through Innuendo: Can Media Questions Become Public Answers?” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 40 (5): 822–832.Google Scholar
Wilkes, A. L., and Leatherbarrow, M.. 1988. “Editing Episodic Memory Following the Identification of Error.” The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology 40A (2): 361–387.Google Scholar
Supplementary material: File

Nyhan and Reifler supplementary material

Appendix

Download Nyhan and Reifler supplementary material(File)
File 76 KB