Illusory Truth Effect

"The illusory truth effect (also known as the validity effect, truth effect or the reiteration effect) is the tendency to believe information to be correct after repeated exposure" (scienceblogs.com).

The illusory truth effect is commonly used to manipulate large populations of people. Marketers and politicians are the biggest culprits when it comes to using this theory. They repeat what they want you to hear until you truly believe it. By exercising this power, they are using a "glitch in the human psyche that equates repetition with truth" (wired.com).

President Trump is a prime example of how the illusory truth theory is put into action. It is safe to say anyone who keeps up with the news even slightly can correlate the term 'fake news' with Donald Trump. It is safe to say this could be one of his more popular 'slogans'. The reason this phrase works is because "when people attempt to assess truth they rely on two things: whether the information jibes with their understanding, and whether it feels familiar' (wired.com). Familiarity stems from the constant repetition thrown at consumers and research shows that this familiarity can surpass rationality.

The illusory truth effect has been studied for many years, while the first mentions of this theory date back to the 1970's. Basic studies about this topic begin with a group of people who rate the validity of a topic or phrase scaling from definitely false to definitely true. Lisa Fazio is a psychologist who studies learning and memory at Vanderbilt University. Her studies concluded that "the more you hear something, the more you'll have this gut-level feeling that maybe it's true" (vox.com). Fazio lays and emphasis on the fact that people do not totally change their awareness on a topic. She conveys that the theory allows doubt to creep in just slightly and the rating where the legitimacy is judged moves backward or forward one notch.

Society as a whole should be very wary of this concept. We must not believe everything we hear and should check the credibility of the sources we are hearing these concepts from. This affects me and my inner circle as I want to be up to date on recent news stories that are 100% true. I do not want to be apart of the scheme as I would be spreading the fake news myself.