School of Applied Psychology, University College Cork, Ireland.
Department of Psychological Science, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.
Memory. 2021 Jul;29(6):693-707. doi: 10.1080/09658211.2021.1934033. Epub 2021 Jun 3.
Push polls are an insidious means of disseminating information under the guise of a legitimate information-gathering poll (e.g., "Would you be more or less likely to vote for X if you heard they were being investigated for tax fraud?"). While previous research has shown that push polls can affect attitudes, the current study assessed whether exposure to push polls can increase false memories for corresponding fake news stories. Across four studies, we found that participants ( = 1,290) were significantly more likely to report a false memory for a corresponding fabricated news story after push poll exposure. This was true for positive and negative stories, concerning both fictitious characters and well-known public figures. Furthermore, this effect was stronger after a delay of one week between the push poll and the news story. Our findings suggest that push polls are a potent applied example of the misinformation effect and can significantly increase susceptibility to fake news stories.
推民调是一种阴险的信息传播手段，它以合法的民意调查为幌子（例如：“如果你听说他们正在接受税务欺诈调查，你会不会更有可能投票给 X？”）。虽然之前的研究表明，推民调可能会影响态度，但目前的研究评估了接触推民调是否会增加对相应虚假新闻报道的虚假记忆。在四项研究中，我们发现参与者（n=1290）在接触推民调后，更有可能报告对相应捏造的新闻故事的虚假记忆。这对于正面和负面的故事都是如此，无论是虚构的角色还是知名的公众人物。此外，在推民调和新闻报道之间有一周的时间间隔后，这种效果更强。我们的研究结果表明，推民调是错误信息效应的一个有力的应用实例，它会显著增加对虚假新闻报道的易感性。
