A Just Asking Questions Effect for spreading false information.
This thread is an overview of my lab’s research that I presented at Psychonomics this morning. #psynow24
TLDR: Getting people to generate their own false answers leads them to believe that info. 1/
This thread is an overview of my lab’s research that I presented at Psychonomics this morning. #psynow24
TLDR: Getting people to generate their own false answers leads them to believe that info. 1/
Comments
Kind of explains it.
https://bsky.app/profile/dappergander.bsky.social/post/3lbney4y6e223
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/mental-mishaps
People in news/social media often ask leading questions. Leading questions result in people generating an answer – and sometimes that is a false answer.
Questions let the person asking claim they didn't say the false thing 2/
This young man gives me hope.
(I wasn’t going to post it, but saw the Beatles post, so I did.)
https://youtu.be/B2Dcgq9ri-c?si=l8F0RzlB13OpeBBh
Will asking questions that imply the answer do the same?
Could be weaker since false claim isn’t stated directly.
Could be stronger. Generating info improves memory. And asking questions creates false memories. 3/
During exposure phase, we presented people with trivia questions and answers. Some true, some false.
Read condition: question and answer are both presented
Generate condition: question and a hint to the answer are presented (hint is the first few letters of the answer). 4/
Some were true and some were false.
Items they had read during exposure, items they had generated during exposure, new items they had not seen (control condition). 5/
Previous exposure increased truth ratings -- the Illusory Truth Effect.
This worked for trivia answers they read.
But the effect was larger for answers they generated.
The Just Asking Questions Effect! 6/
When asking question with implied answers, you can get people to create their own false information. They will come to believe self-generated false info. 7/