# Does repeating misinformation in a correction make it more believable?

**How We Know case 001 · Skeptical policy**

> No universal rule is admitted: supportive scope was overgeneralized, the unpublished 2007 data remain unresolved, and both supportive and counterevidence papers cluster in overlapping author, material, and method programs despite distinct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.

**Question:** When a correction repeats a false claim, does familiarity generally cause belief or reliance to rise above an uncorrected or pre-correction baseline?

**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.

## The lineage count

- Apparent support assertions: **10**
- Known supporting participant-data roots: **6**
- Target-comparable supporting roots: **4 known + 1 unresolved**
- Counterevidence assertions: **12**
- Counterevidence participant-data roots: **12**

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.

## Evidence record

### 1. Undercutting

The visible reference names the 2005 older-adult consumer-claim study, whose design does not match the page’s flu-flyer/30-minute description.

Relation: `em:dossier-evidence-relation:sha256:3bf25c4394888d05b5dd466d5ec657076f8e1bade0a22758a9f14d71a323823e`

Exact accepted source spans:

- **The Debunking Handbook Part 2: The Familiarity Backfire Effect** — Reference 1
  - Exact extent: “"Skurnik, I., Yoon, C., Park, D., & Schwarz, N. (2005). How warnings about false claims become recommendations. Journal of Consumer Research, 31, 713-724."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:44d51d01ea830ca7a56e6c5f8268d7fe169268c7003cac80e62dac68f63592e9`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:7d60a074c282db4e330cb3fbfae9f2a7e1a5c2810697304076081094f7f9ff95`
  - Source: https://skepticalscience.com/Debunking-Handbook-Part-2-Familiarity-Backfire-Effect.html
  - License treatment: Copyright notice present and no page-wide reuse license confirmed; only short attributed excerpts and one bibliographic reference are retained.
- **The Debunking Handbook Part 2: The Familiarity Backfire Effect** — 2011 body flu-vaccine flyer description
  - Exact extent: “"To test for this backfire effect, people were shown a flyer that debunked common myths about flu vaccines."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:44d51d01ea830ca7a56e6c5f8268d7fe169268c7003cac80e62dac68f63592e9`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:eb49dd726cc92813ba8d2d214745e161c18aad2aae881f65782fbd5a6162ccd2`
  - Source: https://skepticalscience.com/Debunking-Handbook-Part-2-Familiarity-Backfire-Effect.html
  - License treatment: Copyright notice present and no page-wide reuse license confirmed; only short attributed excerpts and one bibliographic reference are retained.
- **The Debunking Handbook Part 2: The Familiarity Backfire Effect** — 2011 body 30-minute delayed result
  - Exact extent: “"However, when queried 30 minutes after reading the flyer, some people actually scored worse after reading the flyer."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:44d51d01ea830ca7a56e6c5f8268d7fe169268c7003cac80e62dac68f63592e9`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:c0a250e212e11339e2fb6b2d8722ec2e76bd59a7e1862c990cd95aad78452a0c`
  - Source: https://skepticalscience.com/Debunking-Handbook-Part-2-Familiarity-Backfire-Effect.html
  - License treatment: Copyright notice present and no page-wide reuse license confirmed; only short attributed excerpts and one bibliographic reference are retained.
- **Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effect** — Introduction paragraph 7, unpublished 2007 lineage
  - Exact extent: “"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)"”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:6accd573de23b322290afd3a05bc100f95b2f5b39ad719226f2ea63bc9971f28`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:9c81d25b1a60915d89b3d9dc5c0d61f5e31c35c0b9e0362f300c6cc41b675d49`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00241-6
  - License treatment: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
- **Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effect** — Introduction paragraph 7, missing-baseline qualification
  - Exact extent: “"the study also did not feature a baseline condition against which to access actual “backfire.”"”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:6accd573de23b322290afd3a05bc100f95b2f5b39ad719226f2ea63bc9971f28`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:904b6f6c39ff2ab990eb887faa445fb3a515466e5d5beb60e27f7a1155b2df7f`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00241-6
  - License treatment: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

### 2. Support

A review-level report of the unresolved flu-flyer participant data.

Relation: `em:dossier-evidence-relation:sha256:2a396a64848b0d610f7a7952c85bceddcf575e946f39f4e9ffe5f984829dff8b`

Exact accepted source spans:

- **Making the Truth Stick & the Myths Fade: Lessons from Cognitive Psychology** — PDF p. 7 / journal p. 91, flu-flyer memory sentence
  - Exact extent: “"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."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:26cf72fbfd00403ef426f250a0870bdf131accd753a4c1bdbc8da9db13e8c498`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:b9452e04252cf0279c5e4afed5a015891f5f7da891b655b04bce1bc152dc2715`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1177/237946151600200110
  - License treatment: No article-specific Creative Commons grant was visible in the exact 2016 publisher rendition; it is treated as restricted and only quote-minimal transcript extents and metadata are retained.
- **Making the Truth Stick & the Myths Fade: Lessons from Cognitive Psychology** — PDF p. 7 / journal p. 91, flu-flyer intentions sentence
  - Exact extent: “"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."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:26cf72fbfd00403ef426f250a0870bdf131accd753a4c1bdbc8da9db13e8c498`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:af9e7d1f17415111454adb99fd7eef59dc48b0fa3f4957919c675955e002f3ab`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1177/237946151600200110
  - License treatment: No article-specific Creative Commons grant was visible in the exact 2016 publisher rendition; it is treated as restricted and only quote-minimal transcript extents and metadata are retained.
- **Making the Truth Stick & the Myths Fade: Lessons from Cognitive Psychology** — PDF p. 10, reference 6
  - Exact extent: “"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."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:26cf72fbfd00403ef426f250a0870bdf131accd753a4c1bdbc8da9db13e8c498`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:9997c422125e2b7ee1c435492559459d63b1330e2b4dbe2d9bbd9b54a12fa4a8`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1177/237946151600200110
  - License treatment: No article-specific Creative Commons grant was visible in the exact 2016 publisher rendition; it is treated as restricted and only quote-minimal transcript extents and metadata are retained.
- **Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effect** — Introduction paragraph 7, unpublished 2007 lineage
  - Exact extent: “"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)"”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:6accd573de23b322290afd3a05bc100f95b2f5b39ad719226f2ea63bc9971f28`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:9c81d25b1a60915d89b3d9dc5c0d61f5e31c35c0b9e0362f300c6cc41b675d49`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00241-6
  - License treatment: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

### 3. Failed Replication

The later study reused the 2017 materials but did not reproduce the reported backfire effect.

Relation: `em:dossier-evidence-relation:sha256:6eb8f7978f44d565d2741d7b67a0b0f51a9c9846220ea5a695cd938d325909e9`

Exact accepted source spans:

- **Correcting vaccine misinformation: A failure to replicate familiarity or fear-driven backfire effects** — Abstract outcome
  - Exact extent: “"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."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:38c5f1f91ec80e4254e1976b2d304498af9efc5b9b5212567e7297f6821cdc20`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:13f977e372e0ecd2ab4dd46be74904c634e41c7c8770c8d381ac38232d378a76`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281140
  - License treatment: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
- **Correcting vaccine misinformation: A failure to replicate familiarity or fear-driven backfire effects** — Method materials source
  - Exact extent: “"Stimuli were taken directly from Pluviano et al. (2017) and are provided in the S1 File, available at https://osf.io/dwyma/."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:38c5f1f91ec80e4254e1976b2d304498af9efc5b9b5212567e7297f6821cdc20`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:1c4786d64ab763a96dd1bd631fc984198706ba79575489ceb213cfe374e91e9e`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281140
  - License treatment: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

### 4. Dependence

Both papers used US MTurk workers through CloudResearch with the same 5000-HIT and 97% approval thresholds; cross-paper participant overlap is unreported.

Relation: `em:dossier-evidence-relation:sha256:17d8fc2107bb7511f302cbf3fb07a28817d7573106daf068e2f841c6dbe9bee1`

Exact accepted source spans:

- **Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effect** — Experiment 1 participants
  - Exact extent: “"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."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:6accd573de23b322290afd3a05bc100f95b2f5b39ad719226f2ea63bc9971f28`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:7740ac912f07e1043285fb2147d05d884154f66af713fe145badd3573a0c7569`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00241-6
  - License treatment: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
- **Can corrections spread misinformation to new audiences? Testing for the elusive familiarity backfire effect** — Experiment 1 procedure administration platform
  - Exact extent: “"The experiment was administered using Qualtrics survey software (Qualtrics, Provo, UT) via the CloudResearch platform (formerly TurkPrime; Litman, Robinson, & Abberbock, 2017)."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:6accd573de23b322290afd3a05bc100f95b2f5b39ad719226f2ea63bc9971f28`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:151a27ed917e26c4d9709ba09c8e05dc556ece4c7548be6c57e89b8645735fd8`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00241-6
  - License treatment: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
- **Examining the replicability of backfire effects after standalone corrections** — Experiment 1 participants
  - Exact extent: “"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%."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:0b0390469f562099baf4aa24f693be88f9e4649d5814abc9ff0417a4212fe6fb`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:a48e75ded5d3ef41916b981244b096e74cbe8141ddfe64c5a9764d0e3930e14e`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-023-00492-z
  - License treatment: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

### 5. Dependence

The replication directly reused the 2017 stimuli, so material lineage is shared even though participant data were newly collected.

Relation: `em:dossier-evidence-relation:sha256:caed12c4a5610eb9867fd628a8f30f2487d32f88f83b5277bad2bb0f167f4e6c`

Exact accepted source spans:

- **Correcting vaccine misinformation: A failure to replicate familiarity or fear-driven backfire effects** — Method materials source
  - Exact extent: “"Stimuli were taken directly from Pluviano et al. (2017) and are provided in the S1 File, available at https://osf.io/dwyma/."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:38c5f1f91ec80e4254e1976b2d304498af9efc5b9b5212567e7297f6821cdc20`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:1c4786d64ab763a96dd1bd631fc984198706ba79575489ceb213cfe374e91e9e`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281140
  - License treatment: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

### 6. Qualification

Preserves the induced-skepticism open-response result as an unresolved boundary.

Relation: `em:dossier-evidence-relation:sha256:07cc3b3d226bbd04fb07616344ea1fdf879db6ebe893b10773aef0513525b870`

Exact accepted source spans:

- **Examining the replicability of backfire effects after standalone corrections** — Abstract results and qualification
  - Exact extent: “"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."”
  - Edition: `em:dossier-edition:sha256:0b0390469f562099baf4aa24f693be88f9e4649d5814abc9ff0417a4212fe6fb`
  - Span: `em:dossier-span:sha256:312a906bf71acd0b989eff19d01ea6e6874ddff21546c2956a6809af1baaa99a`
  - Source: https://doi.org/10.1186/s41235-023-00492-z
  - License treatment: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).

## What remains unresolved

- 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`

## Reproducibility receipt

- Dossier: `em:dossier:sha256:4339d6d6d52b9b534d2e63c95f52ff3cf90be5264f567762f47bab9af4d945a7`
- Catalog: `em:catalog:sha256:bbb220ad1a77ab1caf572a544534da57b633bd27d43b347a53522eae6caf5c50`
- Frontier: `em:frontier:sha256:ce9c3933ec7290b0cbd593ae26c9415bc913adca94b156e5dc1e2adb7c0db210`
- Accepted commit: `c5b307f6960514be3d71fdbed5fe41aec5d9b00d`
- View policy: `em:application-policy:skeptical-v0.1`
- Epistemic policy: `commons-balanced-v0.1`
- Disclosure policy: `public-noninterference-v0.1`
- Compiler: `epistemedia/0.2.0`
- Content digest: `fa43221bdfe26cdea6152bfa12af2c904678315c0559d0cfbc013a431563e621`
- Independent review receipt: `research/how-we-know/corrections-backfire/review-receipts/20260822T183134Z-codex-independent-reviewer.json`