Sharon Begley -- People Believe a 'Fact' That Fits Their Views Even if It's Clearly False

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: "John F. McMullen" <observer () westnet com>
Date: Fri, 04 Feb 2005 21:01:53 -0500 (EST)
To: johnmac's living room <johnmacsgroup () yahoogroups com>
Cc: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: Sharon Begley -- People Believe a 'Fact' That Fits Their Views Even
if It's Clearly False

> From the Wall Street Journal --
http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB110746526775045356,00.html?mod=todays_us_
marketplace

SCIENCE JOURNAL
People Believe a 'Fact' That Fits Their Views
Even if It's Clearly False
By SHARON BEGLEY

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.

You can e-mail me at sciencejournal () wsj com

Copyright 2005 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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     -- Arthur C. Clarke
     "You Gotta Believe" - Frank "Tug" McGraw (1944 - 2004 RIP)

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