The illusory-truth effect: familiar claims feel truer, regardless of accuracy — and how to defend against it.
Kahneman summarizes a robust finding: repeated statements are judged more true than novel ones, because the brain mistakes the ease of processing (fluency) for evidence of truth. Propagandists and advertisers exploit this directly — say it often, in many places, until it feels self-evident. The effect operates below awareness and even works on claims you know are dubious. Defenses are practical: notice when a belief rests on familiarity rather than a checkable source; trace repeated claims back to their origin; and treat 'everyone is saying it' as a prompt to investigate, not a reason to believe. Frequency is a feature of distribution, not a measure of accuracy.
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