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Prior exposure increases perceived accuracy of fake news
Open accessAbstract
The 2016 U.S. presidential election brought considerable attention to the phenomenon of "fake news": entirely fabricated and often partisan content that is presented as factual. Here we demonstrate one mechanism that contributes to the believability of fake news: fluency via prior exposure. Using actual fake-news headlines presented as they were seen on Facebook, we show that even a single exposure increases subsequent perceptions of accuracy, both within the same session and after a week. Moreover, this "illusory truth effect" for fake-news headlines occurs despite a low level of overall believability and even when the stories are labeled as contested by fact checkers or are inconsistent with the reader's political ideology. These results suggest that social media platforms help to incubate belief in blatantly false news stories and that tagging such stories as disputed is not an effective solution to this problem. It is interesting, however, that we also found that prior exposure does not impact entirely implausible statements (e.g., "The earth is a perfect square"). These observations indicate that although extreme implausibility is a boundary condition of the illusory truth effect, only a small degree of potential plausibility is sufficient for repetition to increase perceived accuracy. As a consequence, the scope and impact of repetition on beliefs is greater than has been previously assumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
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“Reducing the sharing of misinformation is of substantial importance, because simply being exposed to misinformation can increase subsequent belief13,20–22.”
From Accuracy prompts are a replicable and generalizable approach for reducing the spread of misinformation (2022) · cites this paper as [13]
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“Some explanations for belief in misinformation identify factors that resist intervention (4), while others propose policy approaches that are effective in practice but difficult to scale (34, 44).”
From A digital media literacy intervention increases discernment between mainstream and false news in the United States and India (2020) · cites this paper as [44]
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“In particular, amongst those exposed, nearly two-thirds (66%) reported seeing it on a daily basis, which is problematic as repeated exposure is known to increase belief in fake news (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
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“The final theme is labelled as attitudes, referring to the analysis of psychological mechanisms and biases that make individuals believe in fake news (Pennycook et al., 2018; Bronstein et al., 2019; Britt et al., 2019).”
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“Prior exposure to news headlines may also affect message credibility due to dynamics associated with the illusory truth effect, a type of processing heuristic that suggests that false information is often believed when repeated (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
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Lower Artificial Intelligence Literacy Predicts Greater AI Receptivity
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“This is a problem because familiarity with (fake) news increases perceptions of accuracy (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
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“This may be problematic, because even a single prior exposure to a false political headline can increase later belief in the headline (Pennycook, Cannon & Rand, 2018).”
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Fake news agenda in the era of COVID-19: Identifying trends through fact-checking content
Ceron, W., de‐Lima‐Santos, M., & Quiles, M. G. (2020) · Online Social Networks and Media · doi:10.1016/j.osnem.2020.100116 · Cited by 145
“A closer look at the literature on fact-checking and fake news argues that the repetition of debunks makes it more believable by the public, however, reveals a number of gaps and shortcomings[80, 6].”
Backgroundvan der Meer, T. G. L. A., Hameleers, M., & Ohme, J. (2023) · Journalism Studies · doi:10.1080/1461670x.2023.2187652 · Cited by 121
“Since being able to form accurate beliefs based on credible information is at the heart of a well-functioning democracy (Pennycook, Cannon, and Rand 2018), the present study is set out to assess if the public debate about misinformation and communicative attempts to correct it (such as…”
BackgroundMartel, C., & Rand, D. G. (2023) · Current Opinion in Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101710 · Cited by 122
Deepfake news: AI-enabled disinformation as a multi-level public policy challenge
Whyte, C. (2020) · Journal of Cyber Policy · doi:10.1080/23738871.2020.1797135 · Cited by 130
Siegel, A. A. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108890960.005 · Cited by 123
Carey, J. M., Guess, A. M., Loewen, P. J., Merkley, E., Nyhan, B., Phillips, J. B., & Reifler, J. (2022) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-021-01278-3 · Cited by 118
Jahanbakhsh, F., Zhang, A. X., Berinsky, A. J., Pennycook, G., Rand, D. G., & Karger, D. R. (2021) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3449092 · Cited by 112
“This phenomenon has also been reported in [51], where Pennycook et al. found that even a single prior exposure to a headline increases subsequent perceptions of its accuracy.”
BackgroundEcker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., & Chadwick, M. (2020) · Cognitive Research Principles and Implications · doi:10.1186/s41235-020-00241-6 · Cited by 131
Chadwick, A., & Stanyer, J. (2021) · Communication Theory · doi:10.1093/ct/qtab019 · Cited by 151
Accuracy and social motivations shape judgements of (mis)information
Rathje, S., Roozenbeek, J., Bavel, J. J. V., & van der Linden, S. (2023) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-023-01540-w · Cited by 150
“Numerous studies suggest that misinformation exposure 1 may reduce support for climate change 5,6 and the COVID-19 vaccine 7,8 , and that the mere repetition of misinformation can increase belief in it 9,10 .”
Fernández, M., & Alani, H. (2018) · International World Wide Web Conference (WWW) · doi:10.1145/3184558.3188730 · Cited by 118
Bishop, D. (2019) · Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology · doi:10.1177/1747021819886519 · Cited by 115
The Emerging Science of Content Labeling: Contextualizing Social Media Content Moderation
Morrow, G., Swire‐Thompson, B., Polny, J. M., Kopec, M., & Wihbey, J. (2020) · Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology · doi:10.1002/asi.24637 · Cited by 124
“However, plausibility does serve as a boundary condition for illusory truth where statements with extremely low believability, such as “ the Earth is a perfect square, ” did not increase perceptions of accuracy when repeated (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
BackgroundMosleh, M., Martel, C., Eckles, D., & Rand, D. (2021) · Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3411764.3445642 · Cited by 106
“warning [8-10], although tagging some false content may increase the sharing of untagged false content via the “implied truth efect””
BackgroundSelf-citationTraberg, C. S., & van der Linden, S. (2021) · Personality and Individual Differences · doi:10.1016/j.paid.2021.111269 · Cited by 121
Roozenbeek, J., Maertens, R., Herzog, S. M., Geers, M., Kurvers, R. H. J. M., Sultan, M., & van der Linden, S. (2022) · Judgment and Decision Making · doi:10.1017/s1930297500003570 · Cited by 106
Russian propaganda on social media during the 2022 invasion of Ukraine
Geissler, D., Bär, D., Pröllochs, N., & Feuerriegel, S. (2023) · EPJ Data Science · doi:10.1140/epjds/s13688-023-00414-5 · Cited by 190
“This is especially alarming, since repeated exposure can lead people to perceive misinformation as accurate [67].”
BackgroundCredible Threat: Attacks Against Women Online and the Future of Democracy
Sobieraj, S. (2020) · doi:10.1093/oso/9780190089283.001.0001 · Cited by 100
Higher-order interactions shape collective human behaviour
Battiston, F., Capraro, V., Karimi, F., Lehmann, S., Migliano, A. B., Sadekar, O., Sánchez, Á., & Perc, M. (2025) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-025-02373-5 · Cited by 116
“Self-serving lies are associated with adverse personal outcomes, such as marital dissatisfaction 168 and friendship dissolution 169 , considerable economic losses due to tax evasion 170 and insurance fraud 171 , and threats to democratic processes due to the spread of misinformation 172 .”
Cognitive Reflection is a Stable Trait
Stagnaro, M. N., Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2018) · Judgment and Decision Making · doi:10.1017/s1930297500007695 · Cited by 116
Cognitive Reflection and the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election
Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2018) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/0146167218783192 · Cited by 102
Altay, S., de Araujo, E., & Mercier, H. (2021) · Digital Journalism · doi:10.1080/21670811.2021.1941163 · Cited by 120
“…(Experiment 2) A growing body of research suggests that people may come to believe in fake news because they have been repeatedly exposed to them (Pennycook, Cannon, and Rand 2018; Pennycook and Rand 2020), an effect of repetition on truth judgments known as ‘illusory truth,’ which had been…”
BackgroundMethodInfluentialNadarevic, L., Reber, R., Helmecke, A. J., & Köse, D. (2020) · Cognitive Research Principles and Implications · doi:10.1186/s41235-020-00251-4 · Cited by 119
Human Cooperation and the Crises of Climate Change, COVID-19, and Misinformation
Lange, P. A. M. V., & Rand, D. G. (2021) · Annual Review of Psychology · doi:10.1146/annurev-psych-020821-110044 · Cited by 104
Metadata
- Authors
- Pennycook, G., Cannon, T. D., & Rand, D. G.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Experimental Psychology General
- Published
- 2018-12
- Volume
- 147
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1865-1880
- ISSN
- 0096-3445 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-2222
- PMC
- PMC6279465
- OpenAlex
- W3125618971
- Cited by
- 1,268
- References
- 58
- Citations by year
- 2026: 117 · 2025: 139 · 2024: 141 · 2023: 204 · 2022: 188 · 2021: 198 · 2020: 180 · 2019: 79 · 2018: 20
- FWCI
- 270.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Journal of Experimental Psychology General (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- SSRN Electronic Journal (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
- PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
- OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
- National Institute of Mental Health (MH081902)
- Templeton World Charity Foundation
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Deception detection and forensic psychology
- Keywords
- fake news, illusory truth effect, prior exposure, perceived accuracy, fluency, social media, Facebook, 2016 US presidential election, fact-checking, political ideology, belief formation, repetition
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Female, Humans, Judgment, Deception, Male, Perception, Politics, United States, Social Media
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
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