WEBVTT - Illusory Truth Effect, Part 1: The Big Lie 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.520 My welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how 0:00:05.559 --> 0:00:13.960 Stuff Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.120 Blow your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:16.160 --> 0:00:18.919 Joe McCormick. In. Today, we're gonna be talking about one 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.560 of our favorite subjects, our tendency to believe things that 0:00:22.600 --> 0:00:25.520 aren't true. Uh. Now, Robert, I wonder is there a 0:00:25.600 --> 0:00:29.880 false factoid or claim that you just always find yourself 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.239 recalling as true even though you've checked it before and 0:00:33.320 --> 0:00:37.040 discovered it to be false in the past. Yeah, this 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:39.599 is an interesting question because I feel like there are 0:00:39.600 --> 0:00:42.559 things that come up in research all the time, certainly 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:45.240 key things over the years. Uh. You know, as we 0:00:45.360 --> 0:00:48.320 research and riot different topics where I have to correct on, 0:00:48.479 --> 0:00:50.159 you know, where I think I knew something and then 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.159 I'm like, oh, well that's that's actually now that actually 0:00:52.159 --> 0:00:54.560 do the research, it's not not a not a fact. 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:57.440 And then then you know, the same goes for false beliefs, 0:00:57.440 --> 0:01:00.560 that beliefs that they creep in the sort of Mandela 0:01:00.720 --> 0:01:04.040 fact type of scenario. For instance, there was a time 0:01:04.080 --> 0:01:07.200 when I thought Gene Wilder was dead prior to his 0:01:07.240 --> 0:01:09.560 actual death, and then as he actually dead, now he 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:11.440 was actually dead now. So I thought he was dead 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:13.640 before he was dead exactly because and I think it 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.959 was just a combination of he was not as active anymore, 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:21.120 and I wasn't really keeping up with the Gene Wilder 0:01:21.160 --> 0:01:24.600 filmography and like current events related to Gene Wilder and 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:27.080 something maybe I picked up on some news piece at 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:30.120 some point and somehow he got clicked to the dead category. 0:01:30.280 --> 0:01:31.840 And then when I found out he was alive, it 0:01:31.920 --> 0:01:34.080 was it was really like he came back to life. 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:36.960 And I had the same thing happened literally just the 0:01:36.959 --> 0:01:40.320 other day with a standout comedian, Larry Miller. I don't 0:01:40.319 --> 0:01:43.240 think I remember who that is. Oh. He he had 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:46.920 to kind of you know, dry observational comedy. He he 0:01:47.040 --> 0:01:49.240 had a I think he still acts, but he would 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:52.200 show up on say night chord. I think, oh wait 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:54.720 a minute of seeing some Christopher Guest movies. He may 0:01:54.760 --> 0:01:59.320 have been. Yeah, But for some reason years ago, I 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:01.560 got into my had that he had passed away, And 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:04.080 so occasionally I would think of Larry Miller and be like, oh, yeah, 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.600 I remember Larry Miller. Too bad he passed. And then 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:09.320 I actually looked him up the other day and it 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:11.400 turns out he has not passed away. He's still very 0:02:11.440 --> 0:02:14.600 much alive and active, and I was just living in 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:17.360 this fantasy world of dead Larry Miller's. You know, I 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:21.400 have false beliefs that recur with much more significance, Like 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:25.760 I keep remembering that. Yeah, maybe it's just because I 0:02:25.800 --> 0:02:27.400 was told this all the time when I was a kid, 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:32.160 that vitamin C supplements will ward off colds. That is 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:35.520 not experimentally proven, that that is like not a finding 0:02:35.560 --> 0:02:38.640 of science. And yet I just always if I haven't 0:02:38.720 --> 0:02:42.320 checked in a while, it just seeps right back in, like, yes, 0:02:42.400 --> 0:02:45.200 that is true, vitamin C it'll keep colds away. Well, 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:47.120 it's easy to fall into the trap. I do this 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:50.320 all the time with with various vitamins and some supplements 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.240 where I'm like, I don't know if it works, probably 0:02:52.240 --> 0:02:54.280 doesn't work, but I'm gonna go and take it just 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.880 in case, because it's it's vitamin C. You know, what's 0:02:56.919 --> 0:02:59.160 the what's what's the harm there? It's kind of like 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.560 believing in God's in cases that he exists. Believing in vitamins. Yeah, 0:03:03.639 --> 0:03:05.880 but then you end up with like a weird sort 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.440 of vitamin tentnacle going out of your neck and you 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.480 didn't see that coming. That's fake news. The Joe Vitamin 0:03:11.480 --> 0:03:13.320 C will not cause a tentacle to grow out of 0:03:13.320 --> 0:03:17.079 your neck. But now you've heard it, it's true. Um. 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:18.760 You know, I feel like there are things that have 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:23.520 popped up where where I'll think, well, I've always heard X, 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:26.880 but I've never actually looked it up. Um. And and 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:29.600 then that's where the problem seeps in, you know, where 0:03:29.600 --> 0:03:31.799 I just I think I know something, but I'm not sure, 0:03:31.840 --> 0:03:35.640 but I don't care enough to actually investigate. Um. There 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.440 is one possible example that that comes up, and that 0:03:38.560 --> 0:03:41.280 is there was this, of course, the idea that George 0:03:41.280 --> 0:03:45.920 Washington Carver invented peanut better. He did know he had 0:03:45.960 --> 0:03:48.440 something to do with peanuts. He had, so yeah, he was. 0:03:48.520 --> 0:03:51.840 He was. He is a famous inventor, important to African 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:55.640 American inventor. And I just I didn't know a lot 0:03:55.680 --> 0:03:58.360 about him, and I had always heard the peanut better thing, 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.560 but I didn't actually research until I helped my son 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:04.800 with a class project about him earlier this year, and 0:04:04.840 --> 0:04:07.440 then I was able to definitely, you know, check that 0:04:07.480 --> 0:04:09.600 one off on the mental list, like, okay, this is 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:12.320 this is this is false. He did not invent peanut butter. 0:04:12.400 --> 0:04:15.720 He did, but he did do stuff with peanuts, do 0:04:15.760 --> 0:04:18.599 stuff with peanuts, but not peanut butter. Okay. You know. 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:22.880 A huge place where you can see false beliefs persisting 0:04:23.440 --> 0:04:27.480 um is in people's beliefs about sort of like political 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:32.560 facts or sociological data. A very very common one is 0:04:32.600 --> 0:04:36.720 people's beliefs about crime. I think it's because like crime 0:04:36.839 --> 0:04:39.920 is one of those like sensational types of subjects and 0:04:39.960 --> 0:04:43.039 makes people think about violence, images of blood they see 0:04:43.040 --> 0:04:45.360 on the news and stuff like that. In a poll 0:04:45.360 --> 0:04:48.840 conducted by Pew in the fall of get this, fifty 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:52.520 seven percent, so a majority of people who had voted 0:04:52.600 --> 0:04:56.240 or planned to vote in ten said that crime had 0:04:56.279 --> 0:04:59.560 gotten worse in the United States since two thousand eight 0:05:00.279 --> 0:05:03.719 by every objective measure. Exactly. The opposite is true. That's 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:07.400 just not true. FBI statistics based off of like nationwide 0:05:07.440 --> 0:05:10.880 police reports UH found that violent crime and property crime 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:15.560 in the United States fell nineteen percent and twenty three percent, respectively, 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:20.000 between two thousand and eight. And and so you think, okay, well, 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.760 maybe that if that's just police reports, maybe fewer people 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:26.120 are reporting crimes to the police, right, But also the 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.479 U S Department of Justice. Bureau of Justice Statistics does 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.520 direct annual surveys of more than ninety thousand households to 0:05:33.520 --> 0:05:35.800 see about rates of crime that might not be reported 0:05:35.800 --> 0:05:38.640 to police, and quote the b j S state to 0:05:38.720 --> 0:05:41.960 show that violent crime and property crime rates fell twenty 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.760 six percent and twenty two percent, respectively between two thousand eight. 0:05:45.760 --> 0:05:49.320 And so a majority of people are believing something that 0:05:49.360 --> 0:05:52.640 by every measure we know, is not true. Crime has 0:05:52.680 --> 0:05:55.400 gone down, and yet a majority of people believe it 0:05:55.440 --> 0:05:59.360 has gone up. And it's not hard to see why 0:05:59.400 --> 0:06:02.320 that might be true when you consider like the political 0:06:02.400 --> 0:06:05.800 messaging of certain politicians. It's also you could also, of 0:06:05.800 --> 0:06:09.440 course think about just people negativity bias, right, the tendency 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:11.640 to believe things are worse than they are in the 0:06:11.720 --> 0:06:16.279 broad sense or mean world syndrome looking at dangerous stuff 0:06:16.320 --> 0:06:19.479 happening on the news and thus having an overrepresentation of 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:21.920 it in your mind. But I think we would be 0:06:21.960 --> 0:06:27.200 wrong to ignore the effects of hearing specific politicians well, 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:30.479 for for example, in twenty sixteen, specifically, it was Donald 0:06:30.480 --> 0:06:33.720 Trump a lot talking about how crime is through the roof, right, 0:06:33.760 --> 0:06:36.680 And to your point, we can look to statistics on this. 0:06:36.680 --> 0:06:39.040 This is not something that is uh, that is just 0:06:39.279 --> 0:06:41.440 you know, in the ether, we have hard data. It's 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:43.839 not a matter of opinion. It's just like every measure 0:06:43.880 --> 0:06:47.360 we have says that's not correct. But what about other beliefs, 0:06:47.400 --> 0:06:49.720 I mean that that's certainly not in isolation. There are 0:06:49.720 --> 0:06:54.080 lots of cases where there are widespread beliefs in things 0:06:54.120 --> 0:06:58.159 that are just simply factually not true. Yeah. I'll run 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.359 through a few here that that range on topic. For instance, 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.320 here's a nice science related one to kick off with. UH. 0:07:04.440 --> 0:07:08.359 In a two thousand fifteen PU survey, only thirty percent 0:07:08.400 --> 0:07:11.480 of Americans knew that water boils at a lower temperature 0:07:11.480 --> 0:07:14.840 at higher altitudes. Thirty nine percent said it would boil 0:07:14.880 --> 0:07:17.800 at the same temperature in Denver in l A, again 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:23.400 Denver being at a far higher altitude, and had it reversed. 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:26.040 So the majority, something like two thirds of people were 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.840 just flat wrong, yes and uh yeah. And to put 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:33.240 that in perspective with another science fact, most Americans in 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:38.040 this two thousand fifteen survey eight correctly identified the Earth's 0:07:38.080 --> 0:07:41.640 inner layer, the core, as its hottest part. And uh 0:07:41.720 --> 0:07:45.400 nearly as many two percent knew that uranium was needed 0:07:45.440 --> 0:07:49.160 to make nuclear energy and nuclear weapons. Well, should we 0:07:49.200 --> 0:07:51.240 be comforted by the fact that that's what people know. 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:54.640 I don't like, they don't know much about water, but 0:07:54.680 --> 0:07:58.520 they know about nuclear weapons. Well. I mean, on one hand, 0:07:58.680 --> 0:08:03.400 nuclear weapons is was is and was more in the news. Uh. 0:08:03.440 --> 0:08:05.640 And then on the other hand, like the the inside 0:08:05.640 --> 0:08:11.560 of the earth is more engaging and and also completely unpoliticized. Uh. Well, well, 0:08:11.640 --> 0:08:14.400 water is not politically boiling point of water is not politicized. 0:08:14.440 --> 0:08:17.680 But it's also not very sexy. I guess like it's 0:08:17.720 --> 0:08:21.800 it's it's one of those things where unless you're actively 0:08:21.880 --> 0:08:25.679 moving from low to high altitudes, or you know, living 0:08:25.800 --> 0:08:27.240 part of your time and dinner from part of your 0:08:27.240 --> 0:08:30.040 time in l A, I guess it's it's very possible 0:08:30.080 --> 0:08:32.560 to live your entire life without really having any real 0:08:32.640 --> 0:08:35.600 world experience with the difference. Uh. Though, I do feel 0:08:35.640 --> 0:08:38.920 like if you read enough baking manuals, it comes up. Yeah, 0:08:38.920 --> 0:08:41.040 but maybe you just don't remember which way it goes. 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.120 I guess I say that you know one of the 0:08:43.160 --> 0:08:45.920 ones you've got here that that has come up many 0:08:45.960 --> 0:08:47.920 times in my life. It's come up enough that I 0:08:48.000 --> 0:08:51.280 know the right answer now. But the misconception that you 0:08:51.320 --> 0:08:54.840 can see the Great Wall of China from space. Oh yeah, 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:56.840 this is one that I have to admit. I think 0:08:56.960 --> 0:08:59.920 I used to adhere to again without really a rap 0:09:00.000 --> 0:09:02.040 princing it, because it just it had that kind of 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:04.680 truthiness to it, right, and you want it to be 0:09:04.559 --> 0:09:08.720 to be real. The idea that that this this epic 0:09:08.880 --> 0:09:13.880 structure created uh you know long ago, is visible from space, 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:19.040 but it's actually been been disproven multiple times. It's it's 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:23.320 only visible from low orbit under very ideal conditions, and 0:09:23.360 --> 0:09:25.280 it's not visible from the moon at all. Because that's 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:27.760 another version of it, that it's that that the Great 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:29.960 Wall of China can be seen from the moon. Yeah, 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.840 I guess there are nuances to the word visible. What's 0:09:32.960 --> 0:09:35.319 that mean? But in the normal sense that you would 0:09:35.320 --> 0:09:39.320 mean it's not visible from space. Now a two thousand 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:43.360 sixteen you gov poll, this was this is a UK group. 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.560 They looked at how belief in Pizza Gate, that thing, 0:09:48.120 --> 0:09:52.280 how that shakes out across different voter groups. Now, that 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:55.160 was this vast conspiracy theory people had about how there 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:58.160 was a pizza restaurant in Washington, d C. That was 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.080 like running child slavery ings that was linked to the 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:03.559 Democratic Party. Yeah, it had to do with an idea 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:10.000 that Clinton campaign emails supposedly talked about human trafficking and pedophilia. 0:10:10.040 --> 0:10:14.400 And according to this particular poll, seventeen percent of polled 0:10:14.520 --> 0:10:18.000 Clinton voters believed that that this was the case, this 0:10:18.160 --> 0:10:22.480 was a reality, and forty percent of Trump voters did. Um. 0:10:22.520 --> 0:10:24.800 And then there's another classic they looked out to to 0:10:24.800 --> 0:10:28.480 put this in perspective, the idea that President Barack Obama 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:33.360 was born in Kenya. Kind Of alarmingly enough, across both 0:10:33.400 --> 0:10:36.160 groups of voters, both the Clinton voters and the Trump voters, 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:39.120 they found thirty six percent believed it, despite the fact 0:10:39.120 --> 0:10:42.360 that that too, has been debunked time and time again. Yeah, 0:10:42.400 --> 0:10:46.040 I mean, it's crazy that these types of beliefs can 0:10:46.080 --> 0:10:50.200 catch on so well, especially like we we understand very 0:10:50.280 --> 0:10:55.319 well the way that political ideology and tribal thinking affects 0:10:55.400 --> 0:10:58.640 the way we form opinions. Obviously, our our opinions are 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.240 deeply informed by what people we view as our in 0:11:02.400 --> 0:11:04.959 group believe, and so we want to be in line 0:11:05.000 --> 0:11:07.280 with the in group and and stuff like that. But 0:11:07.320 --> 0:11:10.000 you also can't really ignore the fact that these are 0:11:10.040 --> 0:11:12.920 things that if you pay attention to certain sources you're 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:16.760 going to be hearing over and over and over again, 0:11:16.960 --> 0:11:20.000 and what effect that might have, Because it's, you know, 0:11:20.120 --> 0:11:23.920 widely accepted folk wisdom that if you repeat a lie enough, 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:27.080 people start to believe that it's the truth. Right, That's 0:11:27.080 --> 0:11:28.760 one of the things. I mean, I don't know, you've 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:31.840 said it enough times that I'm already convinced exactly, I 0:11:31.880 --> 0:11:34.440 mean almost going along with this. Uh. There's a quote 0:11:34.480 --> 0:11:39.400 that often gets sourced to the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Gebbele's. Uh. 0:11:39.760 --> 0:11:42.000 Some versions of the quote say something like, if you 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:44.839 repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and 0:11:44.880 --> 0:11:48.160 you will even come to believe it yourself. I couldn't 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:50.920 find any evidence that just Gebbels actually said that. It 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.800 seems to be a misattribution, but it's sort of a 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:57.640 paraphrase of similar ideas that are you know, within that 0:11:57.640 --> 0:12:00.840 that frame of thinking. Like Adolf Hitler himself throat in 0:12:00.960 --> 0:12:05.160 mind comp quote, The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield 0:12:05.240 --> 0:12:08.600 no success unless one fundamental principle is born in mind 0:12:08.640 --> 0:12:13.040 constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.439 a few points and repeat them over and over here, 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.360 as so often in the world, persistence is the first 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:23.760 and most important requirement for success. So just the fact 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.480 that Hitler said it obviously shouldn't make us think, well, 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:28.640 you know, he's right. He was Hitler though. If if 0:12:28.679 --> 0:12:30.960 Hitler was good at anything, it was getting lots of 0:12:30.960 --> 0:12:34.880 people to believe lies. Certainly. So, I think because this 0:12:34.960 --> 0:12:38.319 is such an important issue, and because widespread misconceptions are 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.640 so common, and because they can, in fact, especially in 0:12:41.640 --> 0:12:45.680 some political circumstances, be so destructive, and because the repetition 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:49.400 of lies and false statements in in at every scale 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:51.760 of existence, you know, in in mass media and in 0:12:51.800 --> 0:12:55.040 our personal private lives, is so common, I think it's 0:12:55.040 --> 0:12:58.720 worth looking at the actual empirical case. Is this true, 0:12:59.000 --> 0:13:04.040 the idea that repeeding statements over and over does that 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:06.760 actually change what we believe. It's one of those things 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.080 that you know, it sounds so common sensical you just 0:13:09.160 --> 0:13:13.040 assume it's true. But according to the logic we're using now, 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:15.720 those are exactly the kinds of statements that maybe we 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:18.240 should be careful about. Yeah, and I think this is 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.200 an important important topic for for everybody. I don't care 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.559 who you voted for in any previous elections, or which 0:13:24.760 --> 0:13:27.920 political party in your given system that you adhere to. 0:13:28.320 --> 0:13:31.240 I think if you're listening to this show especially, you 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:35.320 want to think for yourself. You want to reduce the 0:13:35.360 --> 0:13:38.120 amount of manipulation that's going on with your your own 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:41.600 view of reality and and and that's what we're going 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:45.360 to discuss here today. We're gonna discuss the degree to 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:51.480 which false information can manipulate our view of reality and ultimately, 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.440 what are some of the things we can do to 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:57.679 to hold onto our our our individuality and all of 0:13:57.679 --> 0:13:59.760 this exactly. So this is going to be the first 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.680 of a two part episode where we explore the liar's 0:14:02.800 --> 0:14:07.360 best trick, the question of repetition and exposure in forming 0:14:07.360 --> 0:14:10.880 our beliefs and changing our attitudes. So that's going to 0:14:10.960 --> 0:14:13.920 be the jumping off point for today's episode. Does exposure 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:17.880 and repetition Is hearing a claim and hearing it repeated 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:21.280 actually have the power to change our beliefs or is 0:14:21.320 --> 0:14:24.880 that just unverified folk wisdom? Yeah? And and of course 0:14:24.920 --> 0:14:26.880 it goes it goes well beyond politics. It also gets 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.560 into marketing. You know, we've we've touched on the manipulative 0:14:30.920 --> 0:14:34.760 nature of marketing and advertisement on the show before, And 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:37.360 it's always one of the things you always come back to. 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:39.800 It's always about messaging, right, like what is the message 0:14:39.800 --> 0:14:42.080 of the product, what's the message of the ad campaign? 0:14:42.360 --> 0:14:45.520 And how they just continue to hammer that home. Why 0:14:45.600 --> 0:14:49.040 do brands have slogans? Yeah? Why don't they just tell 0:14:49.160 --> 0:14:52.560 you a positive message about the brand that's different every time? 0:14:52.720 --> 0:14:55.400 Why do they tell you the same message in the 0:14:55.480 --> 0:14:59.640 same words in every commercial? Yeah? Why did those fabulous 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:02.440 horror trailers from the nineteen seventies say the name of 0:15:02.440 --> 0:15:05.880 the film eighteen times, don't go in the basement, don't 0:15:05.920 --> 0:15:10.120 go in the basement? No one er seventeen will be admitted. Yeah, 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:12.360 it's all. It's all kind of part of the same situation. 0:15:12.680 --> 0:15:14.480 All right, Well, we're going to take a quick break 0:15:14.520 --> 0:15:16.760 and when we get back we will dive into the 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:21.160 research in the history of psychology about repetition and exposure. 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:26.200 Thank alright, we're back. So the first question we're going 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.280 to be looking at today is whether anyone has actually 0:15:29.360 --> 0:15:33.240 studied this question, this question of whether exposing people to 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:37.000 acclaim and then repeating the claim makes them believe it, 0:15:37.360 --> 0:15:40.880 Whether anybody studied that in a controlled scientific context. And 0:15:40.880 --> 0:15:43.960 the answer is a resounding yes. There are I think 0:15:44.080 --> 0:15:47.760 dozens of studies on this subject in various forms. Probably 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:50.800 the flagship study on this, the first big one that 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:54.360 everybody sites that that really got people into the subject, 0:15:54.440 --> 0:15:56.680 that got the ball rolling on it was from ninety 0:15:56.760 --> 0:16:00.120 seven and it was by Lynn Hasher, David Goldstein, and 0:16:00.160 --> 0:16:04.280 Thomas Topino, and it was called Frequency and the Conference 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:08.240 of Referential Validity in the Journal of Verbal Learning and 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:10.680 Verbal Behavior. And that was, as I said, in nineteen 0:16:10.760 --> 0:16:13.800 seventy seven. So the authors started out in the study 0:16:13.840 --> 0:16:16.720 by talking about how most studies of memory that take 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:21.560 place in the lab involved useless or meaningless information units. 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:24.320 So researchers, for example, might try to see how well 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:27.400 subjects remember a phrase like I just made this up. 0:16:27.640 --> 0:16:31.720 The purple donkey was made of soft spoken muscular elves, Like, 0:16:31.760 --> 0:16:35.240 can you remember that word for word? The purple donkey 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:40.000 was made by muscular elves, now, now you're close, not 0:16:40.160 --> 0:16:42.840 made of Yeah, it makes a lot more sense to 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:45.120 say made by wo But I see, I've already messed 0:16:45.200 --> 0:16:49.400 up the origin story of the purple donkey. Statements like 0:16:49.400 --> 0:16:51.800 this have no importance in the real world, and part 0:16:51.800 --> 0:16:54.680 of what they were talking about is that we're testing 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:59.360 for memory and things that don't have any validity to reality. Um, 0:16:59.600 --> 0:17:02.120 so the authors right that they're curious about what kind 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:05.720 of processing subjects do with information units that might have 0:17:05.880 --> 0:17:10.359 validity in the real world. For example, factual statements like quote, 0:17:10.560 --> 0:17:14.360 the total population of Greenland is about fifty thou which 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:17.040 at the time of the study it was I checked. Though, 0:17:17.080 --> 0:17:18.840 that seems like a lot more people than should be 0:17:18.840 --> 0:17:22.320 in Greenland, right I was. I was surprised by that. Well, yeah, 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.600 I would agree based on I'll be a limited amount 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:29.680 of of information that I've I've read and viewed about Greenland. 0:17:29.720 --> 0:17:32.639 You know, typically in my experience, Greenland shows up in 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:36.080 nature documentaries and of course you're going to see rather 0:17:36.160 --> 0:17:40.399 barren h locations in those films. Well, greenlanders out there 0:17:40.400 --> 0:17:42.840 in the audience. Let us know, if you're listening, what's 0:17:42.920 --> 0:17:46.720 life like up there in Greenland? I'm interested now. But 0:17:46.800 --> 0:17:49.840 anyway back, so, yeah, population of Greenland at the times 0:17:49.880 --> 0:17:53.399 about fifty and so statements like this both refer to 0:17:53.480 --> 0:17:56.119 something that could be true or false in the real world, 0:17:56.480 --> 0:17:59.280 and there are also things that people are probably uncertain about, 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:02.200 like do you know what the actual population of Greenland 0:18:02.320 --> 0:18:04.639 is I didn't know before I looked it up, And 0:18:04.680 --> 0:18:07.040 so we know that the statement is either true or false, 0:18:07.119 --> 0:18:10.000 but we aren't sure whether it's true or false. And 0:18:10.040 --> 0:18:12.800 of course, to go back to a previous episode, you're 0:18:12.840 --> 0:18:16.879 kind of anchoring my expectations by throwing out without any 0:18:17.040 --> 0:18:20.200 population data in my head about Greenland, like that's suddenly 0:18:20.240 --> 0:18:22.960 all I have to go on. Oh yeah, that's interesting. Also, 0:18:23.080 --> 0:18:25.359 it's so like it could be three thousand or it 0:18:25.400 --> 0:18:29.040 could be like a million, and either you're sort of 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:33.479 moving your guests range toward fifty. So the thing they 0:18:33.520 --> 0:18:35.520 point out is even though most people don't know what 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:38.399 the population of Greenland is, we're often willing, into some 0:18:38.480 --> 0:18:41.280 extent able to make guesses as to whether statements like 0:18:41.359 --> 0:18:45.560 this are true. So where does this semantic knowledge come from? 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.320 When we feel like we have knowledge to offer a 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:51.120 guess about what the population of Greenland is even when 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.959 we don't really know what is that what allows us 0:18:55.000 --> 0:19:00.400 to judge these questions? And the authors note that frequency 0:19:00.640 --> 0:19:03.560 is a really powerful variable in all kinds of judgments 0:19:03.560 --> 0:19:07.000 we make about the world, so they hypothesize that quote 0:19:07.000 --> 0:19:11.639 frequency might also serve as the major access route that 0:19:11.760 --> 0:19:16.280 plausible statements have into our pool of general knowledge. So 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:20.479 the idea is that we build our knowledge base based 0:19:20.520 --> 0:19:23.880 on how frequently we are exposed to ideas. You hear 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:26.480 an idea a lot, and that gets reinforced in the 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:29.080 knowledge base. You've never heard an idea before, or you 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.399 don't hear it a lot, it doesn't get reinforced and 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:34.159 it doesn't exist in the knowledge base. So here's the 0:19:34.160 --> 0:19:36.960 experimental part. Researchers came up with a list of a 0:19:37.000 --> 0:19:40.560 hundred and forty true statements and false statements, crafted so 0:19:40.680 --> 0:19:43.320 they all sound plausible. Yeah, they could be true. You know, 0:19:43.440 --> 0:19:46.800 the average person would be unsure whether or not they're true, 0:19:47.160 --> 0:19:50.000 and the statements were on all kinds of subjects like geography, 0:19:50.200 --> 0:19:54.920 arts and literature, history, sports, current events science. A few 0:19:54.920 --> 0:19:59.320 examples of true statements included things like Cairo, Egypt has 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:04.040 a larger population than Chicago, Illinois, and French horn players 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:08.560 get cash bonuses to stay in the U. S. Army. Well, 0:20:08.600 --> 0:20:10.800 i'd see it. I should have joined the army after 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.119 I'll see I was a french horn player really in 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:15.600 high school. Yeah, I didn't know that. What's it like 0:20:15.640 --> 0:20:18.240 playing the French horn? It's just you know, there's a 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:20.240 lot of spit and a lot of shoving your hand 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:24.520 up horns. That's it. Otherwise it's like playing a trumpet. 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:27.000 Now see I actually played trumpet, and it's a lot 0:20:27.080 --> 0:20:29.840 less fun than what you're describing. Yeah, I mean, I 0:20:29.880 --> 0:20:31.439 don't know. There is an elegance to the way you 0:20:31.480 --> 0:20:34.000 hold it and you again, you have your hand in 0:20:34.080 --> 0:20:37.640 the inside the horn. I don't know. Being a trumpet 0:20:37.680 --> 0:20:40.200 player to me always felt like being a person who's 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:44.560 complaining at full volume. Yeah, yeah, there is. There's more 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.719 of an outward stance with the trumpet, right, you are 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:50.440 blasting outward, But in the French horn, you it's it's 0:20:50.480 --> 0:20:54.960 more like you're playing music into yourself. That's quite beautiful, 0:20:56.000 --> 0:20:57.879 more beautiful than any music I've ever played on the 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:01.000 French horn. Uh so we got to get back to 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:03.840 the study. Okay, So that's that's supposedly true. French horn 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:05.920 players at the time got cash bonuses to stay in 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:08.520 the U. S. Army. Examples of false statements where things 0:21:08.560 --> 0:21:11.280 like the People's Republic of China was founded in nineteen 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:14.600 forty seven, who was actually nineteen forty nine, or the 0:21:14.640 --> 0:21:18.280 copy Bara is the largest of the marsupials. That's not true. 0:21:18.320 --> 0:21:21.680 The largest marcipial is the red kangaroo. The largest known 0:21:21.680 --> 0:21:24.119 in the fossil record is this thing called the extinct 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.560 dip protodon. Now that in the capy bar is a rodent, right, 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:31.440 only is the capy bar and marsupial. I didn't even 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:33.200 look it up. I only know that because I go 0:21:33.280 --> 0:21:35.800 to a lot of zoos these days. But it is 0:21:35.800 --> 0:21:37.680 a mammal, it's a it's a rodent. It is a mammal, 0:21:37.720 --> 0:21:40.119 and it is a rodent, not a marsupial. Well, there 0:21:40.160 --> 0:21:42.560 we go. So it's wrong in multiple ways. So you 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:44.879 got this big list that came up with of true 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.880 and false statements, and all of them should sound plausible 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:49.960