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  5. False Memories for Fake News During Ireland's Abortion Referendum
 
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False Memories for Fake News During Ireland's Abortion Referendum

Author(s)
Murphy, Gillian  
Loftus, Elizabeth F.  
Grady, Rebecca Hofstein  
Levine, Linda J.  
Greene, Ciara M.  
Uri
http://hdl.handle.net/10197/11090
Date Issued
2019-08-21
Date Available
2019-09-26T14:17:11Z
Abstract
The current study examined false memories in the week preceding the 2018 Irish abortion referendum. Participants (N = 3,140) viewed six news stories concerning campaign events-two fabricated and four authentic. Almost half of the sample reported a false memory for at least one fabricated event, with more than one third of participants reporting a specific memory of the event. "Yes" voters (those in favor of legalizing abortion) were more likely than "no" voters to "remember" a fabricated scandal regarding the campaign to vote "no," and "no" voters were more likely than "yes" voters to "remember" a fabricated scandal regarding the campaign to vote "yes." This difference was particularly strong for voters of low cognitive ability. A subsequent warning about possible misinformation slightly reduced rates of false memories but did not eliminate these effects. This study suggests that voters in a real-world political campaign are most susceptible to forming false memories for fake news that aligns with their beliefs, in particular if they have low cognitive ability.
Type of Material
Journal Article
Publisher
Sage
Journal
Psychological Science
Volume
30
Issue
10
Start Page
1449
End Page
1459
Copyright (Published Version)
2019 the Authors
Subjects

Bias

Fake news

False memory

Misinformation

Open data

Open materials

Politics

DOI
10.1177/0956797619864887
Language
English
Status of Item
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0956-7976
This item is made available under a Creative Commons License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ie/
File(s)
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Murphy_AbortionRef_AcceptedManuscript_PsychScience.docx

Size

935.26 KB

Format

Unknown

Checksum (MD5)

b34f93f96cf4ee55963309c8b1d6255b

Owning collection
Psychology Research Collection

Item descriptive metadata is released under a CC-0 (public domain) license: https://creativecommons.org/public-domain/cc0/.
All other content is subject to copyright.

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