Lisa Fazio is among the latest cohort of fellows for the Beyond the Ivory Tower writing workshop, hosted by the Templeton Foundation and New York Times contributor James Ryerson.

Beyond the Ivory Tower 2020 Fellow

Outstanding Presentation Award, Midwest Cognitive Science Conference

frank Research Prize in Public Interest Communications

Junior Faculty Teaching Fellow, Vanderbilt University

APA Dissertation Research Award,

James B. Duke Graduate Fellowship Recipient

Pausing to consider why a headline is true or false can help reduce the sharing of false news

Repetition increases perceived truth equally for plausible and implausible statements

Retrieval-based learning in children

Retrieval practice opportunities in middle school mathematics teachers’ oral questions

The Optimal Learning Strategy Depends on Learning Goals and Processes:  Retrieval Practice Versus Worked Examples

Vanderbilt is a dynamic center of research, learning and growth - a private research university of 6,300 undergrads and 5,300 grad/professional students.

Vanderbilt University

Lisa Fazio's research is focused on how the brain learns new information, and why our minds are susceptible to misinformation and lies.  

Her research answers questions such as: 
•How does the brain process information - both true and false?
•How can we prevent the sharing of false information online?
•How do people learn simple facts and more complex knowledge such as mathematical procedures?
•What can teachers and students do to improve learning within and outside the classroom?
•How do students learn incorrect information and how can those errors be corrected?

Her research informs basic theories about learning and memory, while also having clear applications for practitioners, such as journalists and teachers.

How to prevent sharing false information online

Lies

Fake News

Developmental Science

Cognition

Cognitive Neuroscience

Learning & Memory

Development of mathematics understanding

The effects of giving and receiving feedback

Applying cognitive science to educational issues

Instability of general knowledge

How people learn true and false information

Why people believe false information

Fact checking

Memory

Vanderbilt Lab Website: Building Knowledge Lab

Vanderbilt News Site: Lisa Fazio

The Conversation profile: Lisa Fazio

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Want to make a lie seem true? Say it again and again and again.

repeatedly-seeing-headlines-of-wrongdoing-reduces-perception-of-moral-offense

Associate Professor of Psychology and Human Development

A study recently published in Psychological Science reveals that when people repeatedly encounter headlines about corporate wrongdoing, they view the wrongdoing as less unethical and are more likely to believe the headlines are true.

 Social media can cause scandalous news to go viral in an instant, and the resharing of provocative headlines ensures people repeatedly encounter these scandals. To test the effects of this repetition on moral judgement, researchers at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development and the London Business School sent text messages to study participants with news headlines about corporate misconduct. The study occurred over the course of 15 days as participants engaged in their daily routines.

“We often think about social media and the current digital media landscape as increasing our anger and moral outrage, but in this case, repeated exposures to corporate wrongdoings actually made people slightly less outraged about the moral offense,” said Lisa Fazio, associate professor of psychology and human development.  “When we repeatedly see news of the latest viral wrongdoing on social media, we often encounter it passively, at random times of the day, and while we might be distracted by other tasks. In our research, we show that even passing encounters can shape our thoughts and emotional reactions,” said Raunak Pillai, the study’s first author and a psychology doctoral student in Fazio’s Building Knowledge Lab.  The researchers found that participants rated repeated headlines of wrongdoing as significantly less unethical than new headlines–a phenomenon known as the moral repetition effect–and that participants’ anger diminished when they encountered wrongdoings described in repeated headlines versus new headlines. The less anger they felt, the less unethical they judged the wrongdoing. Likewise, wrongdoings in repeated headlines verses new headlines were rated as less unusual, which also led to judging the wrongdoing as less unethical.

That said, the effect size of repetition on moral judgement diminished as participants encountered more headlines; in other words, the effects were larger from the first to the second encounter as compared to the 15th to 16th encounter. As the number of repetitions increased, the effect on moral judgement became progressively smaller.

Additionally, the more frequently participants viewed a headline, the truer they thought it was (known as the illusory-truth effect). After the initial views of headlines, participants’ truth ratings rose sharply and then plateaued, suggesting that the first few encounters with a headline have the most impact on peoples’ beliefs. The findings also suggest that perceptions of misconduct as true may elicit a more lenient moral judgment, but the authors say more research is needed to confirm this effect.

“The more we hear about a wrongdoing, the more we may believe it—but the less we may care,” the authors write.

Fazio and Pillai collaborated with Daniel Effron, Ph.D., from the London Business School on this study.


Repeatedly seeing headlines of wrongdoing reduces perception of moral offense

misinformation-expert-on-youtube-ban-on-false-information-on-vaccines

Lisa Fazio, associate professor of psychology and human development, is available for commentary on YouTube's ban on vaccine misinformation. 

Lisa is an expert in misinformation and false news, studying how people learn, interpret and remember information. She can speak to YouTube's history as a vector for misinformation and other points related to the topic, including:
The importance of finding trusted sources and how it's even harder than normal to tell what is a reliable source, especially as so many personal accounts are floating around Misinformation and mixed messages sent from politicians and government officials on vaccine implications The dangers of so many "experts" talking publicly about vaccines, particularly around the periphery of their expertise and the damage that has been done, particularly during the pandemic  

Misinformation expert on YouTube ban on false information on vaccines

ask-an-expert-how-can-you-recognize-false-information-about-the-virus

Lisa K. Fazio, assistant professor of psychology at Vanderbilt Peabody College of education and human development, gives tips to social media consumers on how to recognize misleading information about COVID-19.

For more information, read an essay about ways to identify misinformation written by Fazio for the Peabody Reflector.  Vanderbilt University faculty are sharing their expertise on a range of topics related to COVID-19. Subscribe to Vanderbilt’s “Ask an Expert” series on YouTube to get the latest updates. 

Ask an Expert: How can you recognize false information about the virus?

Professor Lisa Fazio discusses why people believe misinformation.

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Vanderbilt Peabody College Faculty Profile: Lisa Fazio

Vanderbilt University assistant professor of psychology Lisa Fazio discusses how to distinguish between valid and false information about the COVID-19 vaccines.

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See all Vanderbilt social media at http://social.vanderbilt.edu.

Ask an Expert: How can you spot misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines?

Media Inquiry