There are a few different mechanisms that could explain why people thought repeatedly-seen headlines were less unethical to share. 

Fluency: Even though participants were told the information was false, recognizing the headline could have made it feel more intuitively true. This could explain the weaker moral condemnation in the intuitive thinking group in experiment 3. 

The fluency-truth association can make the blatantly false information easier to digest. 
Alternatively, we have weaker reactions to stimuli as they occur repeatedly. This could be happening with the headlines. Both would explain why seeing a headline once led to less of a moral condemnation reduction than seeing the headline 4 times. 

It is important to note that the reduction in moral condemnation is not a result of the illusory truth effect. The illusory truth effect does not apply to clearly false information, and the subjects were clearly told the headlines were fake, except for experiment 4. The participants needed to pass a comprehension check that ensured they knew the article was fake, so they could not be basing their judgments on thinking the article was true.


Possible Explanations for the Effect of Repetition on Morality Judgements

Older and younger adults are influenced by the illusory truth effect to the same degree. However, those with Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia are usually less influenced by repetition.

Age and the Illusory Truth Effect

People often more readily believe information that they hear repeated than they believe novel information.

Pepperdine University

University of California, Davis

People are more likely to believe a claim that they have been exposed to repeatedly. Repetition increases the perception of social consensus, even when it is just one person’s account being repeated multiple times. The effect of repetition of messages is so strong that it can sway people who are unsure and even convince people who know it is false to accept it.


Repetition of Information

- interrupted falsehoods
- illusory truth effect
- Tip-of-the-tongue state
- fact checking
-	source monitoring
-	cognitive shortcuts/ properties of the knowledge base

Terms and Concepts Related to False Beliefs

Marsh, E. J., & Stanley, M. (2020). False beliefs: Byproducts of an adaptive knowledge base? In R. Greifeneder, M. Jaffé, E. J. Newman, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), The psychol- ogy of fake news: Accepting, sharing, and correcting misinformation (pp. 131–146). London: Routledge. 

False beliefs: Byproducts of an adaptive knowledge base? 

Corrections--in doing so, repeating a message--may spread false information to "bystanders" (i.e., people not relevant, even if people who are relevant are corrected). It is suggested by Schwarz & Jalbert (2021) that to avoid this effect, one should reiterate the facts, rather than make corrections.


Effects of Repetition of Information

Illusory Truth Effect

Because individuals are more likely to believe a claim that they have been repeatedly exposed to, they therefore rely on the familiarity of these claims as an indicator of the veracity of these claims.

Familiarity Backfire Effect

If an individual is distracted or interrupted when they are presented with inaccurate information, they are more likely to misremember that incorrect information as being true.

Interrupted Falsehoods

A frustrating state of being in which one is having difficulty recalling information that is just out of reach.

Tip-Of-The-Tongue State (TOT State)

A semantic illusion; a phenomenon where listeners/readers fail to recognize an inaccuracy in a text.

When asked the question, "How many animals of each kind did Moses take on the ark?" people answer with "two", failing to recognize that it was Noah, not Moses, who took animals on the ark.

The Moses Illusion

The process by which a message, when paired with a discounting cue, has a delayed impact on the recipient. For example, if an individual sees the same advertisement on television every day, it begins to lose its initial appeal causing the individual to revert to his/her original attitude about the advertised product.

Sleeper Effect


The failure to engage in reflective, effortful reasoning when encountering new information.

Relying too heavily on our existing heuristic patterns without modifying them.

Learn Before

Related

Learn After