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The Persistence of Erroneous Information in Memory: The Effect of Valence on the Acceptance of Corrected Information
Author(s) -
Guillory Jimmeka J.,
Geraci Lisa
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
applied cognitive psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.719
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1099-0720
pISSN - 0888-4080
DOI - 10.1002/acp.3183
Subject(s) - psychology , persistence (discontinuity) , valence (chemistry) , cognitive psychology , negative information , cognition , social psychology , developmental psychology , neuroscience , chemistry , geotechnical engineering , organic chemistry , engineering
Summary People often have difficulty changing previously held, but erroneous, beliefs. This finding is particularly worrisome in politics where misinformation is regularly distributed about political candidates. We examined whether initial inferences about a fictional political candidate could be corrected, and whether people's willingness to accept a correction was influenced by the valence of the information being corrected. Participants read a list of statements describing a politician running for re‐election in which a negative, positive or neutral piece of information about the politician was later corrected. Results showed that receiving a correction reduced reliance on the original information for all types of information: positive, negative and neutral. Results also showed that participants tended to rely on negative information the most when answering inference questions, regardless of whether it was corrected or not. Results have implications for decision‐making in politics and other applied areas.Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.