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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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Murray, S. F., Stanley, M. L., McPhetres, J., Pennycook, G., & Seli, P. (2020) · PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/9evzc · Cited by 21
Fake News: O Que É, Como Se Faz E Por Que Funciona?Preprint
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“A exposição pode inclusive favorecer o julgamento de conteúdos pouco plausíveis, embora ainda haja controvérsia sobre essa possibilidade em particular (Cf. DECHENE et al., 2010; PENNYCOOK et al., 2015).”
BackgroundInfluentialDai, S.-C., Hsu, Y.-L., Xiong, A., & Ku, L. (2022) · ACM SIGKDD Conference on Knowledge Discovery and Data Mining (KDD) · doi:10.1145/3534678.3539205 · Cited by 18
“Whereas published studies focus on investigating how repetition affects people’s belief in misinformation in experimental [33, 36] and real-world [14] settings, little work has been done to understand how such familiarity impacts the debunking of misinformation.”
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“Familiarity or prior exposure to misinfor-mation is known to contribute to accuracy perceptions (DiFonzo et al., 2016; Pennycook et al., 2018).”
BackgroundCook, J., Lepage, C., Hopkins, K. L., Cook, W., Kolog, E. A., Thomson, A., Iddrisu, I., & Burnette, S. (2024) · Human Vaccines & Immunotherapeutics · doi:10.1080/21645515.2024.2407204 · Cited by 17
“10 As a result, some scholars have begun to explore the prospect of proactive strategies to counteract the spread of misinformation.”
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Exploring factors that mitigate the continued influence of misinformation
Kan, I. P., Pizzonia, K. L., Drummey, A. B., & Mikkelsen, E. J. V. (2021) · Cognitive Research Principles and Implications · doi:10.1186/s41235-021-00335-9 · Cited by 20
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Ahmed, S., & Gil‐López, T. (2022) · Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly · doi:10.1177/10776990221110113 · Cited by 21
“In addition, exposure to misinformation has also been found to affect how users develop and maintain beliefs (Pennycook et al., 2018) and subsequent trust in the news (Wasserman & Madrid-Morales, 2019).”
Memory sins in applied settings: What kind of progress?
Schacter, D. L. (2022) · Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition · doi:10.1037/mac0000078 · Cited by 18
“Pennycook et al. (2018) showed that the illusory truth effect holds for repeated fake news stories that had actually been posted on Facebook, including implausible stories and those that were fl agged as contested by fact-checkers (see also Fazio et al., 2019).”
Johansson, P., Enoch, F., Hale, S. A., Vidgen, B., Bereskin, C., Margetts, H. Z., & Bright, J. (2023) · SSRN Electronic Journal · doi:10.2139/ssrn.4648332 · Cited by 30
Petrocelli, J. V. (2021) · Group Processes & Intergroup Relations · doi:10.1177/1368430220987602 · Cited by 18
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BackgroundMANIFESTO: a huMAN-centric explaInable approach for FakE news spreaders deTectiOn
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“Second, the tendencies to engage in elaborate cognitive reflection (Fiske & Taylor, 2013; Pennycook & Rand, 2021) and analytical reflection (Pennycook & Rand, D, 2018) are associated with a lower belief in fake news.”
BackgroundReliability Criteria for News Websites
Heuer, H., & Glassman, E. L. (2023) · ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction · doi:10.1145/3635147 · Cited by 20
“…objectivity, Chołoniewski et al. [ 13 ] point out that, despite their imper-fections, they have been judged as “accurate enough to be used as ground-truth for, e.g., media bias classifiers [ 47 , 49 , 50 ], fake news studies [ 51 , 52 , 53 ], and automatic fact-checking systems [ 55 , 56 , 57 ].””
BackgroundMethodTrust or distrust? Neither! The right mindset for confronting disinformation
Mayo, R. (2023) · Current Opinion in Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2023.101779 · Cited by 22
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Exploring Effects of Chatbot's Interpretation and Self-disclosure on Mental Illness Stigma
Cui, Y., Lee, Y.-J., Jamieson, J., Yamashita, N., & Lee, Y. (2024) · Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction · doi:10.1145/3637329 · Cited by 18
“This is due to the illusory truth effect [54, 98], the tendency to believe even false information to be true if it is repeated often.”
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“Third, ITE intensifies with semantic factors like rhyming and aesthetic elements, including vibrant font colors (McGlone & Tofighbakhsh, 2000; Pennycook et al., 2018; Reber & Schwarz, 1999).”
InfluentialIn These Uncertain Times: Fake News Amplifies the Desires to Save and Spend in Response to COVID-19
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“For instance, repeated exposure to a piece of fake news has been shown to increase its believability (Pennycook, Cannon, and Rand 2018).”
BackgroundSharing news with online friends: A study of network homophily, network size, and news type
Sun, R., Li, C., Millet, B., Ali, K. I., & Petit, J. (2021) · Telematics and Informatics · doi:10.1016/j.tele.2021.101763 · Cited by 16
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A Disinformation-Misinformation Ecology: The Case of Trump
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BackgroundOptimising Emotions, Incubating Falsehoods
Bakir, V., & McStay, A. (2022) · Springer eBooks · doi:10.1007/978-3-031-13551-4 · Cited by 20
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Karduni, A., Wesslen, R. S., Markant, D. B., & Wenwen Dou, A. (2023) · Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media · doi:10.1609/icwsm.v17i1.22161 · Cited by 15
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BackgroundOnline media literacy intervention in Indonesia reduces misinformation sharing intention
Ford, T. W., Yankoski, M. G., Facciani, M. J., & Weninger, T. (2023) · Journal of Media Literacy Education · doi:10.23860/jmle-2023-15-2-8 · Cited by 15
“…ethical considerations, particularly given that prior exposure to misinformation increases the perceived validity of that same misinformation (Pennycook, 2018) and that repeated exposure to misinformation increases the probability that a user will spread misinformation (Guess et al., 2020b).”
BackgroundAdjusting news accuracy perceptions after deepfakes exposure: Evidence from a non-Western context
Ahmed, S., Wang, Y., & Bee, A. W. T. (2023) · Telematics and Informatics · doi:10.1016/j.tele.2023.102047 · Cited by 16
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“…, the bandwagon effect —people’s tendency to replicate other people’s behaviors regardless of their own beliefs, such as sharing information without making value judgements (Rikkers, 2002), the illusory-truth effect (Pennycook et al., 2018), the nov-elty effect (Vosoughi et al., 2018) among others.”
Discovering why people believe disinformation about healthcare
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Digital visions: the experience of self and others in the age of the digital revolution
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“Pennycook et al. (2018) demonstrated that exposure to fake news leads individuals to inaccurately perceive it as more credible—a phenomenon termed the ‘illu-sory truth effect.’”
Narrative Medicine Meets Planetary Health: Mindsets Matter in the Anthropocene
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“At least one part of the pathway forward requires a better understanding of the way falsehood exposure and narrative is used to capture emotions, and ultimately beliefs [57].”
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McGlynn, J., Baryshevtsev, M., & Dayton, Z. (2020) · Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review · doi:10.37016/mr-2020-37 · Cited by 17
“The observed delay in debunking response is problematic because even minimally repetitive exposure to fake news can increase the perceived accuracy of the information (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
BackgroundConfusing Effects of Fake News on Clarity of Political Information in the Social Media Environment
Choi, J., & Lee, J. K. (2021) · Journalism Practice · doi:10.1080/17512786.2021.1903971 · Cited by 15
“Indeed, frequent exposure to fake news stories is found to result in political misperception (i.e., false belief) (Pennycook, Cannon, and Rand 2017), leading to a number of serious consequences like non-functioning of © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group CONTACT Jae Kook Lee…”
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Gamir-Ríos, J., & Tarullo, R. (2022) · adComunica revista científica de estrategias tendencias e innovación en comunicación · doi:10.6035/adcomunica.6299 · Cited by 15
Deprived, Radical, Alternatively Informed
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“In essence, the illusory truth effect states that the more often people are exposed to the same (news) content, the more credible they will rate it (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
BackgroundEveryday non-partisan fake news: Sharing behavior, platform specificity, and detection
Shephard, M. P., Robertson, D. J., Huhe, N., & Anderson, A. (2023) · Frontiers in Psychology · doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1118407 · Cited by 22
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“Perceived accuracy about the interview was assessed by an item adapted from Pennycook et al. (2018), which was “How likely do you think that this interview was accurate?””
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“A study by Pennycook et al. (2018) may provide first insights into whether warnings of misinformation can mitigate the easiness effect.”
BackgroundUsing theoretical frameworks in behavioral research
Calder, B. J., He, S., & Sternthal, B. (2023) · Journal of Business Research · doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2023.113758 · Cited by 20
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“Even when the information is blatantly false or when the source is not credible, continued exposure to such information still leads people to believe it [47].”
BackgroundThe Psychology of Misinformation Across the Lifespan
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“Finally, the third group of factors is the interactions of the characteristics of individual news consumers with news features, such as news consistency with consumers’ prior beliefs (Moravec et al., 2018; Pennycook & Rand, 2019) and prior exposure (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
BackgroundCOVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Cameroon: The Role of Medical Mistrust and Social Media Use
Nah, S., Williamson, L. D., Kahlor, L. A., Atkinson, L., Ntang-Beb, J.-L., & Upshaw, S. J. (2023) · Journal of Health Communication · doi:10.1080/10810730.2023.2250287 · Cited by 16
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“In contrast, repeated information is more believable because of the illusory truth effect (Effron & Raj, 2020; Fazio et al., 2015, 2019; Murray et al., 2020; Pennycook et al., 2018), so these two competing characteristics may work in different directions for different types of people.”
BackgroundElection Control Through Social Influence with Unknown Preferences
Mehrizi, M. A., Corò, F., Cruciani, E., & D’Angelo, G. (2020) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-58150-3_32 · Cited by 14
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BackgroundHidden Incentives for Auto-Induced Distributional Shift
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“…create an ideal environment for the spread of fake news: they increase the likelihood of repeat viewings of similar content, and because of the illusory truth effect, that content is more likely to be believed and shared (Pennycook et al., 2019; DiFranzo & Gloria-Garcia, 2017; Pariser, 2011).”
BackgroundA practical guide to doing behavioural research on fake news and misinformationPreprint
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“Examples of fake/false (top) and real/mainstream/true (bottom) headlines that are either ProRepublican (left) or Pro-Democratic (right). for representative examples) investigated the role of exposure (and, specifically, repetition) on belief in true and false news content (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
BackgroundInfluentialPolicy responses to false and misleading digital content
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The Information Environment and Blameworthy Beliefs
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BackgroundRepeating stereotypes: Increased belief and subsequent discrimination
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“This can be damaging, as research shows if people view a story enough times, they are more likely to believe it, even if the story is being disproved [20].”
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“It was agreed that current pop culture references to fake news examples would not be used, this was to avoid answers based on long-term memory recall and bias that may occur with information discernment and the illusory truth effect (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
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Repetition increases belief in climate-skeptical claims, even for climate science endorsers
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DISINFORMATION’S SOCIETAL IMPACT: BRITAIN, COVID, AND BEYOND
Colley, T., Granelli, F., & Althuis, J. (2020) · Defence Strategic Communications · doi:10.30966/2018.riga.8.3 · Cited by 11
García‐Arch, J., Ballestero‐Arnau, M., Hoyas, L. P., & Giaiotti, F. (2022) · Applied Cognitive Psychology · doi:10.1002/acp.3914 · Cited by 14
Credibility and shareworthiness of negative news
van der Meer, T. G. L. A., & Brosius, A. (2022) · Journalism · doi:10.1177/14648849221110283 · Cited by 13
“Being able to form accurate beliefs based on credible information is at the heart of the construction of rationality as well as the functioning of democracy (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
BackgroundMediated Skewed Diffusion of Issues Information: A Theory
McEwan, B. L., Carpenter, C. J., & Hopke, J. E. (2018) · Social Media + Society · doi:10.1177/2056305118800319 · Cited by 13
The Power of Related Articles – Improving Fake News Detection on Social Media Platforms
Gimpel, H., Heger, S., Kasper, J., & Schäfer, R. (2020) · Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS) · doi:10.24251/hicss.2020.743 · Cited by 13
Kanozia, R., Arya, R., Singh, S., Ganghariya, G., & Narula, S. (2021) · DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) · doi:10.15206/ajpor.2021.9.1.48 · Cited by 13
“In some cases, a simple Internet search on Google with search filters (F, 6.7”
BackgroundInfluentialPush polls increase false memories for fake news stories
Murphy, G., Lynch, L., Loftus, E. F., & Egan, R. (2021) · Memory · doi:10.1080/09658211.2021.1934033 · Cited by 13
“Research on the illusory truth e ff ect has shown that prior exposure can increase the perceived accuracy of fake news stories (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
Memories for Public Events in the Internet Age: Fake News, False Memories, and Filter Bubbles
Murphy, G., Egan, R., & Greene, C. M. (2025) · The Remaking of Memory in the Age of the Internet and Social Media · doi:10.1093/oso/9780197661260.003.0008 · Cited by 12
The Methodological Challenges of Studying “Fake News”
Al‐Rawi, A., & Fakida, A. (2021) · Journalism Practice · doi:10.1080/17512786.2021.1981147 · Cited by 12
“Furthermore, it is sometimes manufactured to manipulate public opinion or to make money (Allcott and Gentzkow 2017; Pennycook, Cannon, and Rand 2018; Tandoc, Lim, and Ling 2018) and is thus basically seen as “the online publication of intentionally or knowingly false statements of fact” (Klein and…”
BackgroundSazaka, L. S. R., Hermida, M. J., & Ekuni, R. (2024) · Trends in Neuroscience and Education · doi:10.1016/j.tine.2024.100235 · Cited by 12
Do Heuristic Cues Affect Misinformation Sharing? Evidence From a Meta-Analysis
Sun, Y., & Xie, J. (2024) · Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly · doi:10.1177/10776990241284597 · Cited by 16
“This observation has been further supported by other studies (Chung & Kim, 2021; Koch et al., 2023; Pennycook et al., 2018, 2020; Vu & Chen, 2023).”
Stagnaro, M. N., & Pennycook, G. (2024) · Cognition · doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105989 · Cited by 12
Digitale Gesundheitskommunikation: Kontext und Einflussfaktoren
Salaschek, M., & Bonfadelli, H. (2020) · Bundesgesundheitsblatt - Gesundheitsforschung - Gesundheitsschutz · doi:10.1007/s00103-019-03086-7 · Cited by 16
Grüner, S., & Krüger, F. (2021) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0247517 · Cited by 12
“[21] show that even a single exposure increases the perceived accuracy of false news stories.”
BackgroundExamining Source Effects on Perceptions of Fake News in Rural India
Shahid, F., Mare, S., & Vashistha, A. (2022) · Proc. ACM Hum. Comput. Interact. · doi:10.1145/3512936 · Cited by 15
“Moreover, individual beliefs along with religious and political alignments [71] and prior exposure [83] might influence one’s perceptions of online news.”
Automated Epistemology: Bots, Computational Propaganda & Information Literacy Instruction
O'Hara, I. (2022) · The Journal of Academic Librarianship · doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2022.102540 · Cited by 21
Mirzabeigi, M., Torabi, M., & Jowkar, T. (2023) · Library Hi Tech · doi:10.1108/lht-03-2022-0150 · Cited by 12
Pedrazzi, S., & Oehmer, F. (2020) · Journal of Information Policy · doi:10.5325/jinfopoli.10.2020.0549 · Cited by 12
Flooding the Zone: How Exposure to Implausible Statements Shapes Subsequent Belief Judgments
Ulusoy, E., Carnahan, D., Bergan, D. E., Barry, R. C., Ma, S., Ahn, S., & McGraw, J. (2021) · International Journal of Public Opinion Research · doi:10.1093/ijpor/edab022 · Cited by 15
(Media Attention to) Misinformation can Undermine Trust in Information ScientistsPreprint
Hoes, E., von Hohenberg, B. C., Gessler, T., Qian, S., & Wojcieszak, M. (2022) · PsyArXiv (OSF Preprints) · doi:10.31234/osf.io/4m92p · Cited by 14
Matchanova, A., Woods, S. P., Neighbors, C., Medina, L. D., Podell, K., Beltran‐Najera, I., Alex, C., Babicz, M. A., & Thompson, J. L. (2023) · Current Psychology · doi:10.1007/s12144-023-04464-w · Cited by 13
“Thus, even people with high regard for the truth may share inaccurate headlines because they fail to consider accuracy when making decisions about sharing (Pennycook et al., 2018, 2020, 2021; Van Bavel et al., 2020).”
Westney, Z. V., Hur, I., Wang, L., & Sun, J. (2023) · Information Technology and People · doi:10.1108/itp-05-2022-0410 · Cited by 12
Fake News for All: How Citizens Discern Disinformation in Autocracies
Шириков, А. (2023) · Political Communication · doi:10.1080/10584609.2023.2257618 · Cited by 16
“1 The repetition of false narratives by these media can make their consumers more likely to believe false statements (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
BackgroundContaining misinformation: Modeling spatial games of fake news
Jones, M. I., Pauls, S. D., & Fu, F. (2024) · PNAS Nexus · doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgae090 · Cited by 14
“There are two competing theories about the formation of echo chambers: one side suggests that social connections drives similarity of belief (46, 61), while the other side claims the opposite, that similar beliefs lead to the formation of social ties (62).”
BackgroundJohns, A., Bailo, F., Booth, E., & Rizoiu, M.-A. (2024) · Media International Australia · doi:10.1177/1329878x241236984 · Cited by 11
“For example, there are claims that prior exposure to labelled content may increase the likelihood of users believing an information ’ s accuracy, despite labels later being appended (Pennycook et al., 2018).”
The Online Misinformation Susceptibility Scale: Development and Initial Validation
Katsiroumpa, A., Moisoglou, I., Μangoulia, P., Konstantakopoulou, O., Gallos, P., Tsiachri, M., & Galanis, P. (2025) · Healthcare · doi:10.3390/healthcare13172252 · Cited by 13
“Just reading false news stories can make people more likely to believe them to be true later on [15].”
Thakral, P. P., Barberio, N. M., Devitt, A. L., & Schacter, D. L. (2022) · Memory & Cognition · doi:10.3758/s13421-022-01377-0 · Cited by 12
Multi-winner Election Control via Social Influence
Mehrizi, M. A., & D’Angelo, G. (2020) · Lecture notes in computer science · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-54921-3_19 · Cited by 11
“scade effect, also called social influence. There are shreds of evidence of control election using the effectof social influenceby spreadingsome pieces ofinformation,includingfakenews or misinformation [20]. The presidential election of the United States of America is a real example. It has been shown that on average, n…”
BackgroundUnderstanding public support for smart meters: media attention, misperceptions, and knowledge
Hmielowski, J. D., Kirkpatrick, A. W., & Boyd, A. D. (2020) · Journal of Risk Research · doi:10.1080/13669877.2020.1863844 · Cited by 12
“Pennycook, Cannon, and Rand (2018) found that prior exposure to fake news headlines increased subsequent perceptions of accuracy, but only when respondents did not already know that the information was false.”
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.
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