Misinformation Effect
🇳🇴MisinformasjonseffektenDefinition
The misinformation effect is the tendency for post-event information to alter what we remember about the event itself. After we've experienced something, questions, media coverage, or conversations can 'overwrite' the original memory without our noticing.
Real-world example
Loftus and Palmer (1974) showed participants a video of a car accident and split them into two groups. Group A was asked: 'How fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?' Group B: 'How fast were the cars going when they hit each other?' A week later, all participants were asked: 'Did you see broken glass?' (There was no broken glass in the video.) The 'smashed' group reported remembering broken glass twice as often. The wording of the question had changed the memory.
The effect is powerfully demonstrated in legal psychology: Witnesses who are interviewed multiple times, who read media coverage before interviews, or who are asked leading questions often end up with memories that gradually converge on the narrative they've been exposed to – not on what they actually experienced.
Supplementary perspective
The misinformation effect is one reason memory shouldn't be compared to a recording. Each retrieval 'reactivates' the memory – we process it, add details from other sources, and store it again. Over time, experienced, heard, read, and imagined information merges into a single recollection without source labels. Clinically and in legal psychology this is called 'source monitoring error.'
Practical advice
Recognize
- —Notice if a memory has changed after talking with someone else about the event.
- —Check whether details in the memory came from your own experience or from media/others' versions.
- —Be careful about mixing discussion and memory after important events.
Counteract
- —Write down important observations as early as possible, before others' versions can influence memory.
- —In interviews or testimony: Isolate witnesses from each other and from media coverage.
- —For important decisions based on memory: Cross-check against photos, emails, or independent witnesses.
Ethical use
- —In interviewing: Use open questions and avoid presenting facts before the witness has spoken freely.
- —In journalism: Be aware that interviewees are influenced by what others have said.
- —In leadership: Don't let group discussion replace individual observations in incident reviews.