Did He or Didn’t He? Mixed Evidence for Continued Influence of Retracted Misinformation on Later Person Judgements

Retracted misinformation often continues to influence event-related reasoning, but there is mixed evidence that it influences person impressions. A recent study found no evidence for the continued influence of retracted misinformation on person impressions across four experiments. However, the study used a dynamic impression-rating measure that may have obscured any continued influence effects. Here we report three experiments that tested for the continued influence of retracted misinformation on person impressions using a non-dynamic rating measure comparable to that used in event-related misinformation research. Participants formed an impression of a fictitious person based on a series of behaviour statements. A negative behaviour statement (e.g., “John kicked his pet dog hard in the head when it didn’t come when called”) was subsequently retracted or not retracted. Evidence for the continued influence of the retracted behaviour statement was found in one experiment; in the other two experiments the retracted information was fully discounted. Our findings indicate that, unlike retracted event-related misinformation, retracted person-related misinformation does not consistently show a continued influence effect.