The Illusory Truth Effect
The psychology of believing something is true
Published in
4 min readFeb 4, 2021
What’s this guy wearing?
It’s a sari, right? If you said no, it’s a kilt, you would be correct. And, you might not even be Scottish.
But what if you saw this item, along with text claiming it to be a sari, repeatedly? Do you think that, eventually, you could start believing that a kilt…
…is actually a sari?
Is it truth? Or an illusion…
There’s a phenomenon that psychologists call “The Illusory Truth Effect.” They discovered it in 1977, and have been studying it since. Is it possible to make someone believe something is true, simply by repeating it to them again and again?
According to multiple studies, the answer is yes.
How it works
It works like this: the human brain is rather lazy. But it’s a good kind of lazy. The fact is, thinking takes energy. And often…
