WALL STREET JOURNAL
SCIENCE JOURNAL
By SHARON BEGLEY
People Believe a 'Fact' That Fits Their Views Even if It's Clearly False
February 4, 2005; Page B1
Funny thing, memory. With the second anniversary next month of the
U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, it's only natural that supporters as well
as opponents of the war will be reliving the many searing moments of
those first weeks of battle.
The rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch. U.S. troops firing at a van
approaching a Baghdad checkpoint and killing seven women and children.
A suicide bomber nearing a Najaf checkpoint and blowing up U.S.
soldiers. The execution of coalition POWs by Iraqis. The civilian
uprising in Basra against Saddam's Baathist party.
If you remember it well, then we have grist for another verse for
Lerner and Loewe ("We met at nine," "We met at eight," "I was on
time," "No, you were late." "Ah yes, I remember it well!"). The first
three events occurred. The second two were products of the fog of war:
After being reported by the media, both were quickly retracted by
coalition authorities as erroneous.
Yet retracting a report isn't the same as erasing it from people's
memories. According to an international study to be published next
month, Americans tend to believe that the last two events occurred --
even when they recall the retraction or correction. In contrast,
Germans and Australians who recall the retraction discount the
misinformation. It isn't that Germans and Australians are smarter.
Instead, it's further evidence that what we remember depends on what
we believe.
"People build mental models," explains Stephan Lewandowsky, a
psychology professor at the University of Western Australia, Crawley,
who led the study that will be published in Psychological Science. "By
the time they receive a retraction, the original misinformation has
already become an integral part of that mental model, or world view,
and disregarding it would leave the world view a shambles." Therefore,
he and his colleagues conclude in their paper, "People continue to
rely on misinformation even if they demonstrably remember and
understand a subsequent retraction."
For the study, the scientists showed more than 860 people in
Australia, Germany and the U.S. a list of events -- some true (the
first three examples above), some reported but retracted (the second
two), some completely invented ("Iraqi troops poisoned a water supply
before withdrawing from Baghdad"). Each person indicated whether or
not he or she had heard of the event and rated its likelihood of being
true. People were pretty good at weeding out the invented reports.
Then, for each report they said they had heard, they noted whether it
had subsequently been retracted.
If the report had been retracted, surely people would no longer regard
it as true, would they? Here is where memory parts ways with reason.
The Germans and Australians responded as you'd expect. The better they
recalled that a claim had been taken back, the less true they judged
that claim. They did not believe in events they knew had been
erroneously reported.
But for the Americans in the study, the simple act of remembering that
they had once heard something was enough to make them regard it as
true, retraction be damned. Even many of those who remembered a
retraction still rated the original claim as true.
That comes as no surprise to memory researchers. Time and again, lab
studies show that people have an astonishing propensity to recall
things that never happened. If you read a list of words such as
pillow, bed and pajamas, and are later asked whether another word was
there, you may well "remember" related words that were never
presented. "Sleep" was on the list, wasn't it?
In this case, people's mental model is "words about sleep." In the
case of memories about Iraq, people's mental model is why the U.S.
invaded. The Germans and Australians in this study were skeptical of
the official justification, namely, to find weapons of mass
destruction. The Americans were more credulous on that point. How
suspicious or credulous people were strongly affected whether they
judged a retracted claim to be true or not.
"People who were not suspicious of the motives behind the war
continued to rely on misinformation," Prof. Lewandowsky said,
"believing in things they know to have been retracted." They held fast
to what they had originally heard "because it fits with their mental
model," which people seek to retain "whatever it takes."
In contrast, those who were suspicious of the WMD justification
believed the retractions. The reason is probably that they weren't
sold on the original, erroneous reports -- all of which cast the U.S.
in a good light and Iraqi forces in a bad one. These people "are more
willing to discard elements of a mental model that turn out to be
wrong," says Prof. Lewandowsky.
The news media would do well to keep in mind that once we report
something, some people will always believe it even if we try to stuff
the genie back in the bottle. For instance, six months after the
invasion, one-third of Americans believed WMDs had been found, even
though every such tentative claim was discomfirmed. The findings also
offer Machiavellian possibilities for politicians. They can make a
false claim that helps their cause, contritely retract it -- and rest
assured that some people will nevertheless keep thinking of it as
true.
(GG: Karl Rove is a master at this!)
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