“It's Not Literally True, But You Get the Gist:” How nuanced understandings of truth encourage people to condone and spread misinformation

Langdon, Julia A.; Helgason, Beth Anne; Qiu, Judy; Effron, Daniel A.

doi:10.1016/j.copsyc.2024.101788

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…The former refers to specific details of a sentence or situation, whereas the latter refer to its general meaning. Interestingly, gist memory has been shown to be more influential than verbatim over decision making (see Blalock & Reyna, 2016 , for a review) and, as we have already mentioned in the introduction, individuals tend to falsely remember verbatim details congruent with their beliefs or gist (Greene et al, 2022 , see Langdon et al, 2024 for a review and commentary). From this perspective, false memories generated in our task rely on verbatim traces as participants were asked about specific details of the presented situations, so the association between this kind of false memories and beliefs do not necessarily align with the results of previous studies.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proneness to false memory generation predicts pseudoscientific belief endorsement

Martínez,

Barberia,

Rodríguez-Ferreiro

2024

Cogn. Research

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Among cognitive factors that can influence the endorsement of pseudoscientific beliefs, our study focuses on proneness to false memory generation. In this preregistered study, we presented 170 fluent English speakers residing in the USA with a misinformation task aimed at generating false memories. In this task, they first completed an event encoding stage, in which two events were narrated through sequentially presented pictures. One day later, they read a series of sentences relating the same events but which included several inaccurate descriptions aimed at producing a misinformation effect. Finally, we measured the influence of the misinformation manipulation over false memory generation. After completing the misinformation task, participants responded to a questionnaire measuring pseudoscientific beliefs. Our results showed a positive correlation between pseudoscience endorsement and false memory rates, which indicates that the latter might be a key factor influencing susceptibility to pseudoscience. To our knowledge, this is the first study showing a link between the tendency to believe in pseudoscience and variability regarding proneness to develop false memories. Practical implications for the design of new interventions to effectively reduce pseudoscientific beliefs and their negative impact on our society are discussed.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Proneness to false memory generation predicts pseudoscientific belief endorsement

Martínez,

Barberia,

Rodríguez-Ferreiro

2024

Cogn. Research

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“…The unifying focus of the studies presented in this article is whether gist mental representations affect the online sharing of misinformative news articles on Facebook. On one hand, gist representations can promote misinformation sharing if the gist of the misinformative article is false (Broniatowski et al, 2016;Broniatowski & Reyna, 2020;Langdon et al, 2024;Reyna, 2012aReyna, , 2021. On the other hand, gist representations can be used to correct misinformation (Hwang & Jeong, 2024;Reyna, 2021;Reyna et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The role of mental representation in sharing misinformation online.

Broniatowski,

Hosseini,

Porter

et al. 2024

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied

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Fuzzy-Trace Theory (FTT) posits that people share misinformation online if it promotes gist mental representations cuing motivationally-relevant values. Most people value the truth. Thus, per FTT, people decide to share messages that they perceive as true. FTT also predicts that messages will be more effective if they communicate a simple gist. We test these predictions by examining the roles of mental representation and epistemic quality in decisions to share misinformative articles on Facebook across two experiments and two correlational studies. In studies 1 and 2, we use Facebook data to test the hypothesis that gist proxies in text are associated with online sharing. In study 3, we experimentally manipulate subjects' exposure to a gist-based intervention that explains why a misinformative article is false, a simple debunk stating only that the article is false (but not explaining why) and a verbatim condition providing relevant detailed information but allowing subjects to draw their own conclusions. We found that the gist condition decreased intentions to share misinformation. Finally, in study 4, we replicated this finding, and show that the gist condition also reduces misinformation endorsement. Results provide support for FTT's predictions regarding reducing sharing and endorsement of misinformation on social media.Impact and implications statement: Evidence supports Fuzzy-Trace Theory's predictions that misinformation expressing a gist is more likely to go viral. Furthermore, providing a message explaining the gist of why misinformation is false can reduce endorsement of that misinformation and online sharing. These findings go beyond existing remedies for correcting misinformation. Gist-based interventions should therefore be added to the arsenal of techniques for combating online misinformation.

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The Psychology of Misinformation Across the Lifespan

Edelson,

Reyna,

Singh

et al. 2024

Annual Review of Developmental Psychology

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Ubiquitous misinformation on social media threatens the health and well-being of young people. We review research on susceptibility to misinformation, why it spreads, and how these mechanisms might operate developmentally. Although we identify many research gaps, results suggest that cognitive ability, thinking styles, and metacognitive scrutiny of misinformation are protective, but early adverse experiences can bias information processing and sow seeds of mistrust. We find that content knowledge is not sufficient to protect against misinformation, but that it, along with life experiences, provides a foundation for gist plausibility (true in principle, rather than true at the level of verbatim details) that likely determines whether misinformation is accepted and shared. Thus, we present a theoretical framework based on fuzzy-trace theory that integrates knowledge that distinguishes verbatim facts from gist (knowledge that is amplified by cognitive faculties and derived from trusted sources); personality as an information-processing filter colored by experiences; emotion as a product of interpreting the gist of information; and ideology that changes prior probabilities and gist interpretations of what is plausible. The young and the old may be at greatest risk because of their prioritization of social goals, a need that social-media algorithms are designed to meet but at the cost of widespread exposure to misinformation.

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“It's Not Literally True, But You Get the Gist:” How nuanced understandings of truth encourage people to condone and spread misinformation

Cited by 4 publications

References 33 publications

Proneness to false memory generation predicts pseudoscientific belief endorsement

Proneness to false memory generation predicts pseudoscientific belief endorsement

The role of mental representation in sharing misinformation online.

The Psychology of Misinformation Across the Lifespan

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