EOTO Terms & Concepts - Illusory Truth Effect

        At first I almost made the mistake of choosing an entire of section of concepts and terms rather than just one, but I was drawn towards the theories right off the bat. I looked over them and I found them all to be interesting, but the Illusory Truth Effect seemed like an especially compelling idea. The concept of the Illusory Truth Effect is definitely something I've seen and experienced, but I just didn't know there was an actual view that described this kind of behavior. Basically, what the Illusory Truth Effect is, is having an inclination towards trusting inaccurate information after consistently being told it over and over again. When we tend to hear something all the time it is easier to become used to it and believe it opposed to when we hear brand new information. It really is quite amazing, there are so many things that so many people believe that just simply aren't true, and the only reason they believe it is because they've heard it all their life. Humans often associate people who are intelligent and articulate with truthfulness, so if someone possesses these qualities they are an ideal candidate to enact the Illusory Truth Effect on others. The implications of the Illusory Truth Effect are that you could theoretically make anyone believe something if they hear it enough. This could obviously be used for good if you were trying to persuade people to do something like not commit crime. However, I feel like this method is more-often used to convince people to support immoral causes and even take part in them. This ties right into the idea of propaganda; governments force-feeding their ideology to citizens at every turn until they don't know any better but to believe, since it is literally all they are hearing after a certain point. This is an issue that definitely affects society on a bigger scale and doesn't really stay contained within a small group. Misinformation has been and always will be a daily part of human life, whether it is intentional or not. It can be a product of human error or it can have malintent behind it, but it is something we will experience on pretty much a daily basis. We can still do things to minimize this misinformation, like being thorough and checking facts before actually telling people things. By the sound of it, the Illusory Truth Effect seems to start off with the intention of spreading an agenda and drilling it into people's heads. What ends up happening though, is that it continues to grow and reach its way into all parts of our society. People are then unknowingly taking part in the Illusory Truth Effect because they think what they are saying is true. This definitely effects different demographics differently. For all of these segments it really goes both ways as to believing things that aren't true. Men have a lot of notions and assumptions about women that don't hold any weight, and women have plenty of ideas about the things men do that are also untrue at times. The rich and the poor is an interesting one to look at. This is very presumptuous of me but I would think that the majority of poor people have at least a somewhat negative opinion of rich people, and vice versa. It probably follows that rich people look down on poor people, with a more condescending and belittling perspective, whereas the poor most likely think that rich people are snobby and selfish. Obviously these things are true about some poor people and some rich people, but I don't I think the majority of them prescribe to these stigmas. It affects me because I personally know I have told people things almost my entire life, only to find out they aren't actually true. The article I was reading talked about how nearly half the England and Netherlands teacher populations thought that humans only use 10% of our brains. This too is something I used to think was true for probably the majority of my life. It really makes me start to question where these ideas are even coming from in the first place and why. There are still probably things I think to be true that I'll someday find out aren't. This affects family and friends especially because those are the people you trust and who trust you most, so if I were to receive some information that I didn't know was false, and spread it to all my friends and parents I would feel responsible for not only misinforming my friends, but all the people they went on to tell. It just continues down the chain. That is why I am genuinely concerned for this generation since it seems like people will believe just about anything. Now people always assume that if it's on the internet or someone on social media is posting it, then it is true. Untrustworthy news has become a huge issue in this country and the best way to combat it is by checking multiple news sources to get a full picture. It is sad that we've gotten to this point, but hopefully there's enough people that are still smart enough to recognize the absurdity of the rumors and lies that are being thrown around every single day. However, it is the smart ones who are actually able to utilize this concept of Illusory Truth Effect and convince and manipulate everyone else with their ideas. 

Hassan, Aumyo, and Sarah J. Barber. “The Effects of Repetition Frequency on the Illusory Truth Effect - Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications.” SpringerOpen, Springer International Publishing, 13 May 2021, https://cognitiveresearchjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41235-021-00301-5.