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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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Dupuis, M., & Williams, A. (2019) · IEEE SmartWorld, Ubiquitous Intelligence & Computing, Advanced & Trusted Computing, Scalable Computing & Communications, Cloud & Big Data Computing, Internet of People and Smart City Innovation (SmartWorld/SCALCOM/UIC/ATC/CBDCom/IOP/SCI) · doi:10.1109/smartworld-uic-atc-scalcom-iop-sci.2019.00256 · Cited by 25
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ResultRegulating disinformation on Twitter and Facebook
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BackgroundFake news - Does perception matter more than the truth?
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“…stories is that we can be more certain that these would be the type of stories to spread on social media (Pennycook et al., 2021), but one drawback is that we cannot be certain that participants have not been exposed to these stories, and exposure increases belief (e.g., Pennycook et al., 2018).”
BackgroundFake news: a classification proposal and a future research agenda
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Impact of fake news on social networks during COVID-19 pandemic in Spain
Máñez, M. T. M., Moreno, A., & Díez, F. (2023) · Young Consumers Insight and Ideas for Responsible Marketers · doi:10.1108/yc-04-2022-1514 · Cited by 20
Examining the replicability of backfire effects after standalone corrections
Prike, T., Blackley, P., Swire‐Thompson, B., & Ecker, U. K. H. (2023) · Cognitive Research Principles and Implications · doi:10.1186/s41235-023-00492-z · Cited by 24
“…influence, which is in line with the illusory truth effect, the finding that the more familiar a piece of information is, the more likely it is perceived as true (Begg et al., 1992; De keersmaecker et al., 2020; Dechêne et al., 2010; Fazio et al., 2015; Pennycook et al., 2018; Unkelbach, 2007).”
BackgroundTo illuminate and motivate: a fuzzy-trace model of the spread of information online
Broniatowski, D. A., & Reyna, V. F. (2019) · Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory · doi:10.1007/s10588-019-09297-2 · Cited by 20
“We pro-pose that the influence of news, and its concomitant recognition as fake or genuine, can be studied as a scientific problem (see also Pennycook et al. 2018).”
BackgroundAmericans’ Perspectives on Online Media Warning Labels
Straub, J., & Spradling, M. (2022) · Behavioral Sciences · doi:10.3390/bs12030059 · Cited by 20
“Another recent study showed that fake news, when allowed to incubate over time without being flagged as fake, can create an “illusory truth effect” whereby the story becomes more believable over time [60].”
BackgroundMeasuring exposure to misinformation from political elites on TwitterPreprint
Mosleh, M., & Rand, D. G. (2021) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/ye3pf · Cited by 20
Sohoni, D. (2020) · Sociological Quarterly · doi:10.1080/00380253.2020.1792810 · Cited by 19
“…news stories that are “fake” makes people more likely to believe the news true, even among people who may not have initially believed the news true (Pennycook, Cannon, and Rand 2018).42 It would therefore not be too surprising to find that repeated exposure to problematic interpretations of…”
BackgroundLee, S., Shin, D., Kwon, K. H., Han, S. P., & Lee, S. K. (2024) · MIS Quarterly · doi:10.25300/misq/2023/17195 · Cited by 20
Monetary incentives do not reduce the repetition-induced truth effect
Speckmann, F., & Unkelbach, C. (2021) · Psychonomic Bulletin & Review · doi:10.3758/s13423-021-02046-0 · Cited by 21
“The effect has gained more prominence over the last years, as it may serve as an explanation for people’s belief in conspiracy theories, misinformation, and fake news, due to the frequent repetition of false information on the internet and social media (Pennycook et al., 2018; Vosoughi et al., 2018).”
BackgroundHealth Misinformation on Social Media and its Impact on COVID-19 Vaccine Inoculation in Jordan
Aljalabneh, A. A. (2023) · Communication & Society · doi:10.15581/003.36.1.185-200 · Cited by 20
Markowitz, D. M., Levine, T. R., Serota, K. B., & Moore, A. (2023) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0289004 · Cited by 27
“Most people are poor “fake news” detectors [30], suggesting Trump’s repeated falsehoods may have subtly undermined the public’s ability to discriminate truths from lies [31], or the public’s trust that news organizations will present facts honestly.”
BackgroundFarhart, C. E., Fitz, E. B., Miller, J. M., & Saunders, K. L. (2023) · Research & Politics · doi:10.1177/20531680231193514 · Cited by 19
“…et al., 2019 for a comprehensive review), evidence suggests that exposure to a CT is a necessary condition for belief: One cannot believe and potentially act on the belief that 9/11 was an inside job, for example, unless they encounter the theory (see e.g., Berinsky, 2017; Pennycook et al., 2018).”
BackgroundNomen est omen: why we need to rename ‘antimicrobial resistance’
Krockow, E. M. (2020) · JAC-Antimicrobial Resistance · doi:10.1093/jacamr/dlaa067 · Cited by 19
Crowdsourcing Judgments of News Source QualityPreprint
Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2018) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.3118471 · Cited by 19
Taurino, A., Colucci, M. H., Bottalico, M., Franco, T. P., Volpe, G., Violante, M., Grattagliano, I., & Laera, D. (2023) · Applied Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1002/acp.4136 · Cited by 24
Einav, G., Allen, O., Gur, T., Maaravi, Y., & Ravner, D. (2022) · Technology in Society · doi:10.1016/j.techsoc.2022.102136 · Cited by 25
Do conspiracy theorists think too much or too little?
Brashier, N. M. (2022) · Current Opinion in Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2022.101504 · Cited by 19
Salvi, C., Barr, N., Dunsmoor, J. E., & Grafman, J. H. (2022) · Thinking & Reasoning · doi:10.1080/13546783.2022.2146191 · Cited by 21
“This effect persists even when headlines are doubted by fact-checkers or disagree with the reader ’ s political beliefs (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
BackgroundRasul, M. E., & Ahmed, S. (2023) · Vaccines · doi:10.3390/vaccines11030586 · Cited by 23
“When individuals are repeatedly exposed to misinformation, they are more likely to develop trust in those false beliefs through a phenomenon known as the illusory truth effect, which postulates that repeated information is seen as more credible than non-repeated information [20,21].”
Background“Valued” Thinking in Education: Liberating the Narrative
Murphy, P. K., Ogata, T. M., & Schoute, E. C. (2023) · Educational Psychology Review · doi:10.1007/s10648-023-09754-0 · Cited by 21
“It’s us against them up there”: Spreading online disinformation as populist collective action
Wintterlin, F., Schatto‐Eckrodt, T., Frischlich, L., Boberg, S., Reer, F., & Quandt, T. (2023) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2023.107784 · Cited by 27
“That’s just like, your opinion, man”: the illusory truth effect on opinions
Riesthuis, P., & Woods, J. (2023) · Psychological Research · doi:10.1007/s00426-023-01845-5 · Cited by 22
“…demonstrated the robustness of the illusory truth effect as it has been found for trivia statements (Bacon, 1979), COVID-19-related information (Unkelbach & Speckmann, 2021), fake news headlines (Pennycook et al., 2018), and even when people know the information is incorrect (Fazio et al., 2015).”
BackgroundDistractions, analytical thinking and falling for fake news: A survey of psychological factors
Kwek, A., Peh, L., Tan, J., & Lee, J. (2023) · Humanities and Social Sciences Communications · doi:10.1057/s41599-023-01813-9 · Cited by 23
“Pennycook et al. (2018) found that even one encounter with disinformation can cause subjects to believe that the information is accurate.”
BackgroundDefending Elections against Malicious Spread of Misinformation
Wilder, B., & Vorobeychik, Y. (2019) · Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence · doi:10.1609/aaai.v33i01.33012213 · Cited by 18
Affective Information Processing of Fake News: Evidence from NeuroIS
Lutz, B., Adam, M. T. P., Feuerriegel, S., Pröllochs, N., & Neumann, D. (2019) · Lecture notes in information systems and organisation · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-28144-1_13 · Cited by 18
Beyond Cognitive Ability: Susceptibility to Fake News Is Also Explained by Associative Inference
Lee, S., Forrest, J. P., Strait, J., Seo, H., Lee, D., & Xiong, A. (2020) · CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA) · doi:10.1145/3334480.3383077 · Cited by 18
“622, implying that the repetition effect [15] may rely on repeating the whole news article.”
BackgroundInfluential
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.
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