Misinformation and the 'War on Terror’ When Memory Turns Fiction into Fact

Misinformation and the 'War on Terror’ When Memory Turns Fiction into Fact Stephan Lewandowsky lewan@psy.uwa.edu.auFor slides: http://www.cogsciwa.com

How Do People Process Information? A Cognitive Scientist’s Viewon Globalisation • Focus on information relating to ‘War on Terror’ • False memories for “real” events. • Memory and judgment. • Updating and correcting memory.

Remember? • “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.” - U.S. Vice-President Cheney, 2002 • “We know that [Saddam’s] Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade …. We've learned that Iraq has trained al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.” - George Bush, 2002

12 April 2003: Suspected chemical warhead found in Kirkuk Weapons experts were called Saturday to an occupied northern Iraqi air base in Kirkuk to determine if a warhead discovered there is laden with a chemical agent. 13 April 2003: Prelim nerve warhead test negative A second set of preliminary chemical tests conducted Saturday on a warhead discovered at an occupied northern Iraqi airbase in Kirkuk found no trace of chemical weaponry.. WMD’s? False Memories And The Invasion Of Iraq • WMD’s …. not • WMD’s …. not • WMD’s …. not • WMD’s …. not • WMDs! ?

WMD’s!(Kull, Ramsay, & Lewis, 2003) • Repeated polling in the U.S. by Program on International Policy Attitudes [PIPA]. • Nearly 9,000 respondents. • January – September 2003. • Critical question: “Do you believe clear evidence of WMD’s has been found in Iraq or not?”

Memory And Belief For WMD’s in U.S. in 2003

Memory And Belief For WMD’s in U.S. in 2004 By 2006: Reduced to 23%

Lewandowsky et al. (2005):International Comparison At any time since the beginning of the war, have the allied (Coalition) forces discovered weapons of mass destruction (i.e., chemical or biological agents) in Iraq? 0 1 2 3 4 definitely not unsure definitely yes 30% 22 14 19 16 68% 21 6 3 2

WMD’s Live On …(May 2007, Unpublished Data) • U.S. (N = 305): 2.31 (2.17-2.45) • Australia (N = 150): 1.94 (1.72-2.16) At any time since the beginning of the war, have the allied (Coalition) forces discovered weapons of mass destruction (i.e., chemical or biological agents) in Iraq? 0 1 2 3 4 definitely not unsure definitely yes

Conclusion I:Memory Can Be Fallible • False memories are readily created for events that never happened but are hinted at. • Memory is not a tape recorder. • But not everybody is susceptible to false memories and not everything will be misremembered. More on that later

How Do We Judge Risks?Based On Heuristics • “Rules of thumb” that enable us to make judgments based on incomplete data. • Intuitive and efficient, but subject to biases. • When judging risks… • …people judge ease of recalling instances. Availability heuristic

Consequences Of Availability But the media report accidents, not strokes • What is the more likely cause of death? Any accidentor stroke? • Stroke twice as likely as all accidents together

Consequences Of Availability • What is the more likely cause of death: • A terrorist attack or • an asteroid or comet impact? • About the same (1 in 80,000 lifetime risk).

Other Consequences Of Availability • Iraqi Civilian Fatalities (PIPA Survey of U.S. residents, August 2004). March ’06: Survey: 5000 Actual: 650,000+

Misperceptions Can Kill • Far more extra people died needlessly in traffic accidents in the U.S. post September 11 because they avoided flying … • …. than died on the 4 hijacked planes (Gigerenzer, 2004; Sivak & Flannagan, 2004).

Misperceptions Kill Somewhere between 353 and 1018 extra deaths

The U.S. Majority That Thinks It’s A Minority(Todorov & Mondisodza, 2004) • Which statement comes closest to your opinion? • As the sole … superpower, the U.S. should … be the preeminent world leader. • The U.S. should do its fair share … with other countries. “Unilateral” “Multilateral”

The U.S. Majority That Thinks It’s A Minority(Todorov & Mondisodza, 2004) The majority of U.S. respondents favoured (in February 2003) a multilateral approach to foreign policy over a unilateral approach by a margin > 3:1 No change since 1996 Holds across a number of questions and numerous opinion polls

Actual opinion Estimated opinion 16% Unilateral Why? 71% Multilateral The U.S. Majority That Thinks It’s A Minority • When asked to estimate the opinion of the population at large, the majority felt in the minority (and vice versa). 54% 49%

When Are Opinions Misperceived? (Shamir & Shamir, 1997) • Correlated with prominence of an issue or an opinion in the media. • Information that is more accessible raises people’s estimates of the preponderance of those opinions. • “Unilateral” opinions have received much prominence in the U.S. media during the last few years.

Conclusion II:Judgments Distorted By Memory • People judge risks on the basis of how readily they can retrieve relevant instances. • In consequence, events or risks that are over-reported in the media tend to be over-estimated. • People may misjudge public opinion in addition to risks.

Can People Do Better? • We have examined the “side-effects” of information processing. • People may over-interpret, jump to conclusions, see their biases confirmed, inflate judgments.… • But what if people are explicitly told to disregard things?

Discounting Specific Events:“The Jury Will Disregard…” • Fein, McCloskey, & Tomlinson (1997) • (Mock) jurors do not disregard inadmissible testimony … • …unless they are made suspicious about motives underlying the introduction of the (mis-) information. • Suspicion  people entertain multiple rival hypotheses

Discounting MisinformationAnd The Invasion Of Iraq • 27 March 2003: Tony Blair claims that allied POW’s were “executed” after surrendering, calls it a war crime. • 28 March 2003: Substance of statement retracted by UK defense officials.

Lewandowsky et al. (2005):Overview Of Method • Participants in Australia (N=158), Germany (N=412), and the United States (N=302). • Questionnaire targeting specific news events • Items believed to be true at the time (T) • Items presented as true but then retracted(FR)(e.g., Tony Blair’s POW claim) • Items that were freely invented(F)(but with focus on plausibility) • Administered during April and May of 2003 (War “ended” on 1 May 2003).

After first pass, present all items a second time: never heard this item before OR 0 1 2 3 4 definitely not been retracted unsure definitely been retracted Belief, Memory, And Retraction For each item: Heard or read this statement? 0 1 2 3 4 definitely not unsure if definitely heard before heard before heard before Statement true or false? 0 1 2 3 4 definitely false unsure definitely true Truth ratings for T and FR items considered only if people acknowledged hearing of the event in the first place (some control for media exposure)

T F Belief (“Item True?”) Extent of belief was a function of memory—the better people remember something, the more they believe it

Truth, Memory, And Retraction: FR Items Germany Australia U.S. Truth = .23 × Memory − .42 × Retraction

More On Discounting:Highly Informed People Certain Of Retraction Only consider people with memory rating > 2 Only consider people whose retraction rating > 2 Having thus controlled for media exposure to the extent possible, let’s consider the FR truth ratings…..

More On Discounting:Highly Informed People Certain Of Retraction Truth Rating 0 2 4 Germany Australia U.S.

More On Discounting:Highly Informed People Certain Of Retraction t(61)=10.6, p < .0001 Truth Rating 0 2 4 Germany Australia U.S.

Why? • Discounting of misinformation clearly differed between samples. • Susceptibility to false memories (earlier WMD data) also differed between samples. • How might these differences be explained? • “National characteristics?” • Or a common underlying cognitive mechanism?

Suspicion and Discounting • We know that suspicion enables people to discount mis-information • Possible operationalization of suspicion: Extent of agreement with the proposition that Iraq was invaded to “Destroy weapons of mass destruction”

2003 Presumed Reasons For The Invasion Of Iraq Remember effects of suspicion on jurors?

Suspicion and Retraction Suspicion = reverse code (WMD Reason) • Predict belief in FR items from memory, retraction, suspicion (plus other variables) • Can we explain behaviour of all samples simultaneously?

Suspicion And Retraction Model I Model II Model III r2 = .31 r2 = .35 r2 = .31

Conclusions III: Misinformation And The Invasion Of Iraq • People believe media statements. • In direct proportion to their memory for them. • Despite knowing that statements have been retracted. • …. unless peopleare suspicious about motives surrounding the events in question. • But suspicion does not mean that true statements are also dismissed (Suspicion ≠ Cynicism).

Conclusion If you would be a real seeker after truth, it is necessary that at least once in your life you doubt, as far as possible, all things. −Descartes, Principles of Philosophy, 1644 lewan@psy.uwa.edu.auFor slides: http://www.cogsciwa.com

Misinformation and the 'War on Terror’ When Memory Turns Fiction into Fact