EOTO Post Illusory Truth Effect

 During the second and final round of EOTO presentations, the topic of the illusory truth effect intrigued me. Because of the fact that we live an age where information is filtered and manipulated before it reaches its intended audience, I thought it would be worthwhile to explore how people could be so vulnerable to false information. I found the psychological aspects to be quite scary, but felt much more informed after reading over it works online.

The illusory truth effect is most commonly defined as when we hear a false piece of information so much that we slowly begin to believe that it is real. This deliberate technique can be used in ways to comfort people when they are dealing with something difficult, but also as a way to conflict society by spreading lies. In this world, truth and things that occur often are usually put under the same bracket. This means that people tend to combine fluency with truthfulness, no matter how significant or vast the lie. It is the exact reason why people tend too easily believe the lies spread by politicians, due to the fact that the propaganda that is being pushed is said so frequently and highlighted in the media.

The effect also heavily relies on the bias that people generally tend to have due to the way society has evolved. Things like social media, political party association, and even the concept of celebrities has created so many situations in which people can invest loyalty into something that spreads information to them constantly. Of course because of the increase of information that one can receive, the more likely that information is to be processed and shared for different purposes. If a piece of news media tends to be fake, but it aligns with the bias that you have built up over a number of years, you most likely will believe it without question or doing research. In a society that is so polluted with these sorts of biases, the illusory truth effect is practically immortalized.

To examine its actual effects, one can separate the model into two categories. The individual and the systematic, which are as much related as they are different. The individual believes that they are well informed and far from being susceptible to misinformation. They might think twice about a false claim they see on social media, but the more they are exposed to it, the more they began to think twice about whether it is true or not. The more they consider it, the more likely they will eventually think it is correct. On the systematic side, such as global campaigns that are run by bad actors, gatekeepers are aware that all they need to do is invent an interesting lie or story to gain traction. This means that today especially, it is more difficult to come across true information from major media outlets who are associated with these campaigns.

To conclude this brief post, the illusory truth effect has been one of the biggest reasons as to why there is so much conflicting information regarding simple news stories. It is nearly impossible to rid society of it at this point, but there are ways to realize when it is in play if you have properly done your research. I found this topic to be interesting because agenda setting and gate keeping theory were so heavily linked to it, and now realize that information scandal is a much more serious thing I thought.