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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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“…and engagement in false information (e.g., Clayton et al., 2020; Garrett & Poulsen, 2019; Wood & Porter, 2019), although some scholarship has found limited effects (e.g., Gao, Xiao, Karahalios, & Fu, 2018; Pennycook, Cannon, & Rand, 2018) especially for emotion-laden misinformation (Lee, 2021).”
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Moderating with the Mob: Evaluating the Efficacy of Real-Time Crowdsourced Fact-Checking
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“However, such attempts have been proved to be generally ineffective (Meixler, 2017) or, even worse, to foster an implied “ truth effect ” such that fake headlines that fail to be flagged are seen as more accurate (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
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Fact-checker warning labels are effective even for those who distrust fact-checkers
Martel, C., & Rand, D. G. (2024) · Nature Human Behaviour · doi:10.1038/s41562-024-01973-x · Cited by 74
Individual differences in susceptibility to false memories for COVID-19 fake news
Greene, C. M., & Murphy, G. (2020) · Cognitive Research Principles and Implications · doi:10.1186/s41235-020-00262-1 · Cited by 60
The Trajectory of Truth: A Longitudinal Study of the Illusory Truth Effect
Henderson, E. L., Simons, D. J., & Barr, D. J. (2021) · Journal of Cognition · doi:10.5334/joc.161 · Cited by 65
Moral Emotions Shape the Virality of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media
Solovev, K., & Pröllochs, N. (2022) · International World Wide Web Conference (WWW) · doi:10.1145/3485447.3512266 · Cited by 74
van Zoonen, W., Luoma‐aho, V., & Lievonen, M. (2023) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2023.107992 · Cited by 79
Overtourism in Iceland: Fantasy or Reality?
Sæþórsdóttir, A. D., Hall, C. M., & Wendt, M. (2020) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su12187375 · Cited by 57
“Nevertheless, the traditional journalistic focus on novelty has broken down in recent years, given increased reuse of stories for economic reasons and the advent of social media [137,138].”
BackgroundMere repetition increases belief in factually true COVID-19-related information.
Unkelbach, C., & Speckmann, F. (2021) · Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.02.001 · Cited by 59
Ng, K. C., Tang, J., & Lee, D. (2021) · Journal of Management Information Systems · doi:10.1080/07421222.2021.1990612 · Cited by 60
“Other mechanisms, such as fluency via prior exposure [50], laziness or lack of reasoning [51], and cognitive and affective engagement [42], have also been proposed to explain why people are susceptible to fake news.”
BackgroundHow older adults manage misinformation and information overload - A qualitative study
Vivion, M., Reid, V., Dubé, È., Coutant, A., Benoit, A., & Tourigny, A. (2024) · BMC Public Health · doi:10.1186/s12889-024-18335-x · Cited by 55
Reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news
Martel, C., Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2019) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/a2ydw · Cited by 49
Self-citationSaling, L. L., Mallal, D., Scholer, F., Skelton, R., & Spina, D. (2021) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0255702 · Cited by 52
“Although belief in misinformation is problematic, the spreading of misinformation and fake news is more problematic because it promotes faulty beliefs in others [14] and because exposure to misinformation on one occasion promotes belief in the veracity of that misinformation when it is encountered subsequently [15].”
BackgroundLu, Z., Li, P., Wang, W., & Yin, M. (2022) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3555562 · Cited by 68
How Stories in Memory Perpetuate the Continued Influence of False Information
Hamby, A. M., Ecker, U. K. H., & Brinberg, D. L. (2019) · Journal of Consumer Psychology · doi:10.1002/jcpy.1135 · Cited by 53
Conceptualizing long-term media effects on societal beliefs
Shehata, A., Andersson, D., Glogger, I., Hopmann, D. N., Andersen, K., Kruikemeier, S., & Johansson, J. (2021) · Annals of the International Communication Association · doi:10.1080/23808985.2021.1921610 · Cited by 53
“Both message familiarity and processing fluency have been suggested as mechanisms behind illusory truth (or mere exposure) effects (Moons et al., 2009; Pennycook et al., 2018), and repetitive exposure increases belief accessibility, certainty and strength (Druckman et al.”
BackgroundThe COVID-19 Infodemic and the Efficacy of Interventions Intended to Reduce Misinformation
Kreps, S. E., & Kriner, D. L. (2022) · Public Opinion Quarterly · doi:10.1093/poq/nfab075 · Cited by 51
Journalism, Trust, and Credibility
van Dalen, A. (2019) · Routledge eBooks · doi:10.4324/9781315167497-23 · Cited by 60
“The question of how the credibility of information is assessed in such an environment is particularly pressing in relation to the spread of fake news, which can be defined as “entirely fabricated and often highly partisan content that is presented as factual news” (Pennycook et al., 2017).”
BackgroundInfluentialInfodemia, Fake News and Medicine: Science and The Quest for Truth
Mesquita, C. T., Oliveira, A., Seixas, F. L., & Paes, A. (2020) · International Journal of Cardiovascular Sciences · doi:10.36660/ijcs.20200073 · Cited by 52
A reproducible systematic map of research on the illusory truth effect
Henderson, E. L., Westwood, S. J., & Simons, D. J. (2021) · Psychonomic Bulletin & Review · doi:10.3758/s13423-021-01995-w · Cited by 68
A theory‐driven machine learning system for financial disinformation detection
Zhang, X., Du, Q., & Zhang, Z. (2022) · Production and Operations Management · doi:10.1111/poms.13743 · Cited by 54
Rijo, A., & Waldzus, S. (2022) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2022.107619 · Cited by 55
Karasavva, V., Miller, C., Groves, N. B., Montiel, A. E., Canu, W. H., & Mikami, A. Y. (2025) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0319335 · Cited by 66
“Prior research shows that the familiarity of repeated claims may make them seem more credible [49,50], and this may particularly happen when claims are not tempered by possible limitations.”
Media Source, Selective Exposure, and Susceptibility to False Information
Clayton, K., Davis, J., Hinckley, K., & Horiuchi, Y. (2017) · Japanese Journal of Political Science · doi:10.1017/s1468109919000082 · Cited by 52
“As we noted above, the new studies that have begun to explore this question use fake news headlines as treatment materials (Pennycook and Rand, 2019b; Pennycook et al., 2018) rather than the type of misleading content that major news outlets could actually spread.”
BackgroundResultImundo, M. N., & Rapp, D. N. (2021) · Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.jarmac.2021.10.002 · Cited by 49
Face/Off: Changing the face of movies with deepfakes
Murphy, G., Ching, D., Twomey, J., & Linehan, C. (2023) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0287503 · Cited by 64
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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