The misinformation effect is one of the real-life applications of social psychology. According to chapter 15 of the class reading, the concept is used in social psychology to refer to the propensity for post-event data to influence one’s memory of the original happenings. Accordingly, psychologists posit that the introduction of new information after an event, subtle as it may be, could produce dramatic effects on the manner in which individuals remember the original events.
As one may predict, the misinformation effect could result in inaccurate memories. In some extreme cases, as learned from the chapter, the effect could breed a new set of information, which is often driven from false memories. The effect, as further understood, is an illustration of how effortlessly one’s memory can be compromised. Upon further analysis of the effect, it raises concerns about the usefulness of memory in different real-life situations. For example, criminal justice officials always have to be conscious of the accuracy and reliability of memory when witnesses statements delivered in courts are used to determine whether one is guilty of an offense.
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Four possible theories have been advanced to explain the occurrence of the misinformation effect. First, it is theorized that original information blend with what one is exposed to later in their memory, influencing what they present as memory to others, such as in court. Second, it is thought that the misleading information has the ability to overwrite one’s memory of the original event. Third, it is suggested that the misleading information one receives has a more recent entry into one’s memory reserves, making it easier to access than the older information. Lastly, it is assumed that the initial information may never have been encoded into one’s memory, making the misleading information the only available data in an individual’s memory.
