Professor Kimberley Wade
Kimberley Wade is a Professor of Cognitive Psychology in the Psychology Department at the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. Kimberley's main interest is memory, in particular, aspects of episodic and autobiographical memory. But the question that bothers her most is this: How and why do people come to believe in and remember entire events or aspects of events that never happened? Much of her research has theoretical implications for how we understand memory, and informs professionals working in legal or clinical contexts..
Title: Biased beliefs and made-up memories – What have psychologists learnt about misinformation in 50 years?
Fifty years ago, Loftus and Palmer (1975) demonstrated that the mere wording of a question—such as About how fast were the cars going when they bumped/smashed each other?—can shape what we believe and remember. But what have psychologists learnt about the power of misinformation since then? Quite a lot, actually! It seems no one is immune to misinformation but certain personally characteristics and cognitive traits can render some people particularly prone. The source delivering the porkies (aka “the misinformation messenger”) matters too. We now know what happens when misinformation is fed to intoxicated individuals or to people who believe that a psychotropic drug enables them to resist suggestion. We have studied ways to debunk and pre-bunk misinformation in an effort to tackle the infodemic and growing infusion of fake news in public discourse. Indeed, psychologists have learnt much about misinformation in 50 years and now this research is informing policy and practice that boosts people’s resilience to false information in myriad contexts.
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