False Memories for Fake News During Ireland’s Abortion Referendum

Abstract

The current study examined false memories in the week preceding the 2018 Irish abortion referendum. Participants ( N = 3,140) viewed six news stories concerning campaign events—two fabricated and four authentic. Almost half of the sample reported a false memory for at least one fabricated event, with more than one third of participants reporting a specific memory of the event. “Yes” voters (those in favor of legalizing abortion) were more likely than “no” voters to “remember” a fabricated scandal regarding the campaign to vote “no,” and “no” voters were more likely than “yes” voters to “remember” a fabricated scandal regarding the campaign to vote “yes.” This difference was particularly strong for voters of low cognitive ability. A subsequent warning about possible misinformation slightly reduced rates of false memories but did not eliminate these effects. This study suggests that voters in a real-world political campaign are most susceptible to forming false memories for fake news that aligns with their beliefs, in particular if they have low cognitive ability.

Fool me twice: how effective is debriefing in false memory studies?

“…Across the entire sample, 36% of participants reported a memory or belief for at least one fabricated event. As in our first study (Murphy et al, 2019), ideological congruency was a strong predictor of participants reporting a false memory for the fabricated poster story and of identifying the story as fake after being warned of the purpose of the study. This again demonstrates that false memories are likely to form in line with existing beliefs.…”

“…In our analyses comparing memories, those who reported a belief that an event had happened, but not a memory, were excluded (unless otherwise stated). This mirrors the classification used in our original study (Murphy et al, 2019) and is motivated by a need to clearly discriminate between memories and mere beliefs (Wade et al, 2018). Across the entire sample, 22% of participants reported a false memory; 17% reported a false memory for one fabricated story and 5% reported a false memory for both of the fabricated stories shown.…”

“…In the current study, we examined the memories of participants who six months previously had been exposed to fake news, and debriefed after the study. The false memory study concerned campaign events from the 2018 Irish abortion referendum (see Murphy, et al, 2019, for full details). The study took place in May 2018, one week before the referendum.…”

“…Our first study was conducted via an online survey in the week preceding the abortion referendum, which took place on May 26 th 2018 (for full details see Murphy et al, 2019). Along with four true news stories, participants were presented with two fabricated stories: one concerning illegal campaign posters funded by foreign lobby groups and one concerning distasteful comments made by campaigners.…”

“…One such area of study is the effect of 'fake news', and many studies have attempted to plant false memories for fabricated political events (e.g. Frenda et al, 2013;Murphy et al 2019;Nash, 2018;Saachi et al, 2007). A 2018 meta-analysis showed that misinformation related to real-world events is more challenging to correct than constructed misinformation (e.g., referring to a fictional crime), and that misinformation pertaining to politics is especially resistant to retraction (Walter & Murphy, 2018).…”