Misremembering Corrected Misinformation: How Judgment-Formation Strategies Can Prevent Backfire Effects and Their Consequences for People’s Attitudes

• In Event: Persuasion I: Strategies

Abstract

Correcting misinformation is often not only ineffective, but can also backfire: rectifying a myth can cause people to misremember it as true. We test this “backfire effect” in the context of journalistic coverage and examine how to counteract it. In an online experiment, we find evidence for a systematic backfire effect, leading participants to misremember corrected misinformation as true more often than facts as false. The effect occurs after a few minutes and strengthens after five days. However, we show that forming judgments during reception (online judgments) can reduce backfire errors and prevent the erroneous memory affecting the participants’ attitudes. In contrast, people forming memory-based judgments are more prone to backfire errors and thus base their attitudes on misinformation.

Authors

• Christina V. Peter, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen

• Thomas Koch, LMU Munich