How We KnowCase 001skeptical policy
Familiarity backfire from corrective repetition
Does repeating misinformation in a correction make it more believable?
No universal rule is admitted: supportive scope was overgeneralized, the unpublished 2007 data remain unresolved, and both supportive and counterevidence papers cluster in overlapping author, material, and method programs despite distinct participant-data roots.
The stranger test
Many mentions, fewer evidence roots
10apparent support assertions
4 + 1?target-comparable support roots
12counterevidence data roots
One participant-data lineage per publication-defined data series. Experiments within one publication are collapsed; author, method, material, and research-program overlap remain disclosed separately.
Scope:A lineage audit of the familiarity backfire claim. Independent counts refer to participant-data roots, not complete independence of authors, methods, or research programs. Worldview backfire and continued influence are distinct.
Sentence x-ray
Read the evaluated record
01undercutting
The visible reference names the 2005 older-adult consumer-claim study, whose design does not match the page’s flu-flyer/30-minute description.
Inspect 5 exact source spans
Source 1.1
The Debunking Handbook Part 2: The Familiarity Backfire Effect
Reference 1
"Skurnik, I., Yoon, C., Park, D., & Schwarz, N. (2005). How warnings about false claims become recommendations. Journal of Consumer Research, 31, 713-724."
Source 1.2
The Debunking Handbook Part 2: The Familiarity Backfire Effect
2011 body flu-vaccine flyer description
"To test for this backfire effect, people were shown a flyer that debunked common myths about flu vaccines."
Source 1.3
The Debunking Handbook Part 2: The Familiarity Backfire Effect
2011 body 30-minute delayed result
"However, when queried 30 minutes after reading the flyer, some people actually scored worse after reading the flyer."
Source 1.4
Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effect
Introduction paragraph 7, unpublished 2007 lineage
"the only clear demonstration of a familiarity backfire effect was reported in an unpublished manuscript by Skurnik, Yoon, and Schwarz (2007; discussed by Schwarz et al., 2007)"
Source 1.5
Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effect
Introduction paragraph 7, missing-baseline qualification
"the study also did not feature a baseline condition against which to access actual “backfire.”"
02support
A review-level report of the unresolved flu-flyer participant data.
Inspect 4 exact source spans
Source 2.1
Making the Truth Stick & the Myths Fade: Lessons from Cognitive Psychology
PDF p. 7 / journal p. 91, flu-flyer memory sentence
"When undergraduates viewed a myths-and-facts flyer about the flu taken from the CDC website, they remembered some myths as facts after only 30 minutes."
Source 2.2
Making the Truth Stick & the Myths Fade: Lessons from Cognitive Psychology
PDF p. 7 / journal p. 91, flu-flyer intentions sentence
"Worse, their reported intentions to get vaccinated were even lower than those of control participants who had not been exposed to any message about the flu."
Source 2.3
Making the Truth Stick & the Myths Fade: Lessons from Cognitive Psychology
PDF p. 10, reference 6
"Schwarz, N., Sanna, L. J., Skurnik, I., & Yoon, C. (2007). Metacognitive experiences and the intricacies of setting people straight: Implications for debiasing and public information campaigns. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 39, 127–161."
Source 2.4
Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effect
Introduction paragraph 7, unpublished 2007 lineage
"the only clear demonstration of a familiarity backfire effect was reported in an unpublished manuscript by Skurnik, Yoon, and Schwarz (2007; discussed by Schwarz et al., 2007)"
03failed replication
The later study reused the 2017 materials but did not reproduce the reported backfire effect.
Inspect 2 exact source spans
Source 3.1
Correcting vaccine misinformation: A failure to replicate familiarity or fear-driven backfire effects
Abstract outcome
"We found that the myths vs. facts condition reduced vaccine misconceptions. None of the conditions increased vaccine misconceptions relative to control at either timepoint, or relative to a pre-intervention baseline; thus, no backfire effects were observed. This failure to replicate adds to the mounting evidence against familiarity backfire effects and has implications for vaccination communications and the design of debunking interventions."
Source 3.2
Correcting vaccine misinformation: A failure to replicate familiarity or fear-driven backfire effects
Method materials source
"Stimuli were taken directly from Pluviano et al. (2017) and are provided in the S1 File, available at https://osf.io/dwyma/."
04dependence
Both papers used US MTurk workers through CloudResearch with the same 5000-HIT and 97% approval thresholds; cross-paper participant overlap is unreported.
Inspect 3 exact source spans
Source 4.1
Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effect
Experiment 1 participants
"Participants were US-based adult Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers, who had completed at least 5000 so-called human-intelligence tasks (HITs) with 97% + approval."
Source 4.2
Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effect
Experiment 1 procedure administration platform
"The experiment was administered using Qualtrics survey software (Qualtrics, Provo, UT) via the CloudResearch platform (formerly TurkPrime; Litman, Robinson, & Abberbock, 2017)."
Source 4.3
Examining the replicability of backfire effects after standalone corrections
Experiment 1 participants
"To account for potential exclusions and ensure ample statistical power, 283 participants were recruited from the online testing platform Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) via CloudResearch (Litman et al., 2017). Participants were eligible if they resided in the United States of America and had previously completed more than 5000 MTurk tasks (HITs) with a minimum approval rating of 97%."
05dependence
The replication directly reused the 2017 stimuli, so material lineage is shared even though participant data were newly collected.
Inspect 1 exact source span
Source 5.1
Correcting vaccine misinformation: A failure to replicate familiarity or fear-driven backfire effects
Method materials source
"Stimuli were taken directly from Pluviano et al. (2017) and are provided in the S1 File, available at https://osf.io/dwyma/."
06qualification
Preserves the induced-skepticism open-response result as an unresolved boundary.
Inspect 1 exact source span
Source 6.1
Examining the replicability of backfire effects after standalone corrections
Abstract results and qualification
"Across three experiments (total N = 1156) we found that standalone corrections did not backfire immediately (Experiment 1) or after a one-week delay (Experiment 2). However, there was some mixed evidence suggesting corrections may backfire when there is skepticism regarding the correction (Experiment 3). Specifically, in Experiment 3, we found the standalone correction to backfire in open-ended responses, but only when there was skepticism towards the correction. However, this did not replicate with the rating scales measure."
Kept visible
What remains unresolved
- Unresolved lineage. Unknown participant-data root for the unpublished Skurnik, Yoon, and Schwarz 2007 flu-flyer manuscript. Later sources describe the result, but the manuscript, data, sample record, and direct edition remain unavailable.
em:dossier-lineage:sha256:bcdc8f465086810c43d44ee4421818d87928b2234df8f8749f14d2d3a83d0bc3
Policy reasons
- unpublished data lineage unresolved
- team and method overlap
- measure specific qualifier
- population and context limits
Open the complete 25-work source register
- How Warnings about False Claims Become RecommendationsIan Skurnik, Carolyn Yoon, Denise C. Park, Norbert Schwarz
- The Debunking Handbook Part 2: The Familiarity Backfire EffectJohn Cook, Stephan Lewandowsky
- Making the Truth Stick & the Myths Fade: Lessons from Cognitive PsychologyNorbert Schwarz, Eryn Newman, William Leach
- When Debunking Scientific Myths Fails (and When It Does Not)Christina Peter, Thomas Koch
- A Case for Clarity in the Writing of Health StatementsElizabeth A. H. Wilson, Denise C. Park
- Rumors and Health Care Reform: Experiments in Political MisinformationAdam J. Berinsky
- Patient Knowledge and Recall of Health Information Following Exposure to “Facts and Myths” Message Format VariationsKenzie A. Cameron, Michael E. Roloff, Elisha M. Friesema, Tiffany Brown, Borko D. Jovanovic, Sara Hauber, David W. Baker
- Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effectUllrich K. H. Ecker, Stephan Lewandowsky, Matthew Chadwick
- The effectiveness of short‐format refutational fact‐checksUllrich K. H. Ecker, Ziggy O’Reilly, Jesse S. Reid, Ee Pin Chang
- Reminders and Repetition of Misinformation: Helping or Hindering Its Retraction?Ullrich K. H. Ecker, Joshua L. Hogan, Stephan Lewandowsky
- Reminders of Everyday Misinformation Statements Can Enhance Memory for and Beliefs in Corrections of Those Statements in the Short TermChristopher N. Wahlheim, Timothy R. Alexander, Carson D. Peske
- Recalling Fake News During Real News Corrections Can Impair or Enhance Memory Updating: The Role of Recollection-Based RetrievalPaige L. Kemp, Timothy R. Alexander, Christopher N. Wahlheim
- Fake News Reminders and Veracity Labels Differentially Benefit Memory and Belief Accuracy for News HeadlinesPaige L. Kemp, Vanessa M. Loaiza, Christopher N. Wahlheim
- Processing Style and Responsiveness to Corrective InformationDustin Carnahan, R. Kelly Garrett
- The Continued Influence of Implied and Explicitly Stated Misinformation in News ReportsPatrick R. Rich, Maria S. Zaragoza
- The Role of Familiarity in Correcting Inaccurate InformationBriony Swire, Ullrich K. H. Ecker, Stephan Lewandowsky
- Polarity and Attitude Effects in the Continued-Influence ParadigmAndrew Gordon, Ullrich K. H. Ecker, Stephan Lewandowsky
- Examining the replicability of backfire effects after standalone correctionsToby Prike, Phoebe Blackley, Briony Swire-Thompson, Ullrich K. H. Ecker
- Correcting vaccine misinformation: A failure to replicate familiarity or fear-driven backfire effectsUllrich K. H. Ecker, Caitlin X. M. Sharkey, Briony Swire-Thompson
- Correcting the unknown: Negated corrections may increase belief in misinformationKevin S. Autry, Shea E. Duarte
- Misinformation lingers in memory: Failure of three pro-vaccination strategiesSara Pluviano, Caroline Watt, Sergio Della Sala
- Parents’ beliefs in misinformation about vaccines are strengthened by pro-vaccine campaignsSara Pluviano, Caroline Watt, Giovanni Ragazzini, Sergio Della Sala
- Unlicensed Corrections Violate the Gricean Maxims of Communication: Evidence for a Cognitive Mechanism Underlying Misinformation Backfire EffectsJacob G. Thomas, Kevin S. Autry
- The backfire effect after correcting misinformation is strongly associated with reliabilityBriony Swire-Thompson, Nicholas Miklaucic, John P. Wihbey, David Lazer, Joseph DeGutis
- Familiarity backfire effects? Disentangling the competing effects of repetition and fact-checking corrections of brand misinformationIpek N. Nibat, Olivier Trendel, Robert Mai, Tinka Krüger, Wassili Lasarov, Stefan Hoffmann