EOTO: Illusory Truth Effect

Illusory Truth Effect -     

The Illusory Truth Effect is an interesting topic I was able to learn more about because of this project, at first I was very overwhelmed by the name but getting to learn what this actually is it made a lot more sense and this was something I have heard about before but never knew it had an actual name for it. Most people have probably learned something about it before as well but now that I know it has an actual name that was invented or any of the research done for this theory. This theory is described as false information getting pushed in your head over and over again, making you believe that it might actually be true when really it is still false and you now believe it. Which is exactly what social media and news sources the whole goal is to get you to believe false information. Where they use the Illusory Truth Effect to do so, most of the time succeeding. 

In 1977 these three researchers Lynn Hasher, David Goldstein, and Thomas Toppino first thought of the Illusory Truth Effect when they brought college students into a lab for them to read true and false statements. As they were reading the statements the students believed that both were accurate, so the researchers did more studies and thinking of this theory. It wasn’t until 2000 to 2010 where this theory started to grow and become a more popular subject for researchers, note this was also the time where the internet and social media became an everyday use. So as we look back on it today it isn’t a surprise that these two topics go hand and hand with each other.

I feel as if this issue of people believing misinformation isn’t talked about enough, I know for me I was always on the outside of fake news or biased information I knew of it and that it was a problem. Never much detail about the topic like I have my first semester of college and it has really opened my eyes of what a real issue this is. A statistic from psychology today said that 70% of twitter posts that are shared were fake rather than real. Personally I think that is a big number. I mean it's over half of the people on twitter which is insane. I look at a lot of things on twitter and to find out that 70% of that could be fake blows my mind. If almost half of the population knew things like that this theory wouldn’t be as big of an issue as it is, because sources keep these things private. 

Which is why we need to make more people aware of the Illusory Truth Effect so they are more open minded, and be able to avoid when they have to face this problem first handedly. One big thing that people should start doing is fact checking their sources. I know a lot of people don’t have time or are too lazy to do so, but it will help big time when it comes to wondering if what we are researching is true or fake. Fact checking is something that I have learned a lot about in my English class so I have been able to understand what that is about, and using it. Another helpful tool would be using Critical Thinking, and that might be hard to do as well just because most people are lazy and don’t care that much, but as in the Illusory Truth Effect article starts it can be one of the best ways to help avoid the Illusory Truth Effect. 

There was a lot that I have learned when researching the Illusory Truth Effect. I found this topic very interesting and something that I hope to continue learning more about in the future in other classes. With that being said there is a lot of great information to be taken away from this theory that most people would be very knowledgeable of learning to help them get real facts from reliable sources. One of the biggest things is whether you know about the Illusory Truth Effect theory or not you still have to be careful of what you see on social media.