ABSTRACT
People are often incorrect in their view of the social world, according to standards of logic, economics, or rationality. Prime examples are beliefs in “fake” news, conspiracy theories, and urban legends. Thus, human information processing seems to be gullible, prone to errors, and misjudgments. Yet, from a functional perspective, people may not be too deeply flawed; otherwise, they could not navigate their social world successfully. The chapter highlights the tension between people’s gullibility and their nevertheless high functioning for the case of information repetition in the formation of beliefs (i.e., the judged truth of presented information). It first summarizes explanations why information repetition increases the truth of this information. Second, it discusses consequences of this effect within a modern information environment (e.g., the phenomenon of “fake news”). Finally, the chapter argues that from a functional perspective, believing repeated information more than novel information has overall advantages within a complex social world, although sometimes, this effect may provide credentials for information that people might not and should not believe otherwise.
