Every click online is a small decision, but those decisions can quietly shape what people come to believe.
When a familiar claim keeps reappearing in a feed, it can start to feel true – not because of new evidence, but because it was chosen and seen before.
A new set of psychology experiments shows that repetition becomes especially persuasive when people actively select fake stories and information for themselves, rather than receiving it passively.
The work, led by a team at Ruhr University Bochum (RUB), traces how attention and memory turn self-chosen content into something that feels more trustworthy over time.
Psychologists have long noticed that repeated statements gain credibility, even when people never learn any new facts. They call it the truth effect, a bias where repetition boosts perceived accuracy without added evidence.
Because familiar information feels easier to process, repeated phrasing can nudge people toward higher truth ratings.
This bias does not require strong emotion or persuasion, meaning it can affect trivia, product claims, and politics alike.
Online tasks recreated active sampling, meaning participants chose which prompt to open before seeing the full statement.
Across eight experiments with 953 adults, RUB researchers sometimes assigned topics and sometimes let participants choose them.
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