"Repeat a lie a hundred, a thousand, a million times and it will become a truth." This phrase, attributed to Joseph Goebbels, head of Nazi propaganda (but it is almost certain that it does not belong to him and that he did not utter it), has become one of the laws of advertising and, although it has its nuances, psychological science has shown which is not so wrong.
Also Aldous Huxley in his book "Brave New World" claimed that "62.400 repetitions make a truth". In the work, certain statements were repeated to people as they slept to introduce those beliefs into their minds, so that they remained permanently ingrained and became indisputable dogmas.
In these times, when the dissemination of erroneous or biased information is the order of the day and it is increasingly difficult to discern data from propaganda or manipulation, it is important to know the traps that our minds set for us.
A lie repeated a thousand times becomes - almost - a truth
Most people naively model their beliefs about the world, are influenced by weak arguments, and do not reject irrelevant information. Repetition is one of the ways to influence these beliefs. In fact, in psychology there is what is known as the "illusory effect of truth", also known as the effect of validity, effect of truth or effect of reiteration.
The validity effect, as it is also known, refers to the fact that the repetition of information increases its subjective truth; that is, we are more likely to believe that it is true. But just because we don't buy many copies of a newspaper to make sure what it says is true, there is no logical reason to think that repetition affects the truth. However, humans don't always think logically.
Until recently it was thought that we could believe, without discussing them, false claims we knew practically nothing about, such as a concept of Quantum Physics or an alleged discovery of Paleoecology. However, new research conducted at the Catholic University of Leuven suggests that the repetition-induced truth effect goes a step further by making truly outlandish and implausible claims seem more true, even if they directly contradict our knowledge.
These researchers showed the more than 200 participants various repetitions of false claims. In the first stage, they were presented with 8 of the 16 claims that other people had rated as highly implausible. These included statements such as "Elephants weigh less than ants", "the Earth is a perfect square", "elephants run faster than cheetahs" e "Smoking is good for the lungs", as well as more plausible claims.
People had to evaluate how much they considered those 8 statements to be true and were later presented to them again randomly mixed with others, until they reached five repetitions each.
They were then randomly shown again the 16 statements, eight of which had already been seen repeatedly in the previous step, while the other eight were new. In this case, they had to indicate how much truth each statement contained on a scale from -50 for "definitely false" to +50 for "definitely true".
The researchers thus discovered that repetition of implausible statements affected the evaluation of truth. Overall, 53% of people perceived the claims seen multiple times as less false than the new ones. Only 28% of the participants had the opposite effect; that is, the more exposed they were to such claims, the more they found them implausible and false.
These results show that a surprisingly low number of repetitions (as little as five) can affect our perception of the truth by making implausible claims seem more truthful. It is not that we believe that "the Earth is a perfect square" - even if there are already some who believe it - but we become familiar with the idea and it seems less and less crazy.
Nowadays, subjected to a constant bombardment of news, at the mercy of social algorithms that always show us the same information by creating customized echo chambers, it is not difficult to understand why the world is so polarized and it is increasingly difficult to find. points in common that open the doors to dialogue: everyone believes in their own truth and is unwilling to contemplate other points of view.
What is the illusory effect of truth due to?
The illusory effect of truth is due to a trap in our brain. In fact, we must take into account that our brain tends to save resources; that is, he is lazy. Therefore, the effect of truth induced by repetition is largely due to the "fluidity of processing"; that is, repetition makes information easier to cognitively process, an ease that we often misinterpret as a sign that it's true.
In practice, when something "resonates" in us, we tend to be less critical, to give it more importance and to think that it is more credible than new ideas. Repetition offers the benefit of familiarization while new statements require more cognitive effort. As a result, we will have a tendency to let our guard down and accept what is repeated. It is simply a way to optimize our time and resources.
Of course, we are not mere repositories of information, we have the power to reject irrational ideas, erroneous reasoning and erroneous beliefs. We can prevent our minds from becoming trapped in the illusory effect of truth by analyzing the degree of logic contained in the ideas we hear. We must continually check what we believe and not believe it just because we have heard it repeated a thousand times. A lie does not turn into truth because it is repeated a thousand times, but sometimes it is enough that they convince us. Being aware of being manipulable is the first step to stop being manipulable.
Source:
Lacassagne, D. et. Al. (2022) Is Earth a perfect square? Repetition increases the perceived truth of highly implausible statements. cognition; 223:105052.
Admission Repetition-induced illusion of truth: the more we hear a lie, the more plausible it seems was published first in Corner of Psychology.
