The illusion of truth is a mechanism by which one comes to believe that something is true, without being true; in fact, not only does he come to believe it, but he also defends for fact; it also closes any possibility of rising that the information or the fact is false.
The illusion of truth occurs because there is a flaw in our treatment of reality. We tend to describe what is most familiar to us as true. In this way, anything that alludes to something we already know seems more true.
- An experiment was conducted in 1977: 60 statements were sent to a group of volunteers to assess whether they were true or false.
- The same exercise was repeated successively every fortnight.
- Noticing then that people considered the claims they had seen true.
- Regardless of their raison d’etion.
“A lie would not make sense if the truth was not perceived as dangerous. “Alfred Adler?
Apparently, this mechanism of illusion of truth works because of the existence of an “implicit memory”. In the identified experiment, participants characterized the claims they had previously seen as true. Although they made it clear that they were false, they simply felt they were “familiar,” and they seemed to be true.
The illusion of truth occurs without the collaboration of an explicit and conscious memory, this is a direct result of implicit memory, a type of memory that uses previous experiences to perform tasks, a strategy of our mind to save efforts.
Implicit memory is present, for example, when we tie the laces. First we learn how to do it and then we do it mechanically. If we have to tie up more than just shoes, we’ll probably wear the same technique, although it’s not the best. In other words, we tend to create models to apply in different situations.
This mental strategy also applies to more abstract realities, such as ideas, that give rise to the illusion of truth, meaning that we are more likely to believe in an idea or way of thinking if it is familiar and coincides with experiences, although the sense of familiarity does not have to be related to the truth, hence its danger and the risk of making bad decisions.
The illusion of truth has many problematic effects. Among them, an old order postulated by the Nazis came true. He’s the one who says, “A lie repeatedly a thousand times becomes true. “A repeated statement, being false, tends to be perceived as true. Most people aren’t interested and sometimes the tools to check if something is right or wrong.
In fact, the illusion of truth is a shortcut that takes the mind not to try harder than necessary, if we look at everything we think and do we would be exhausted in less than an hour, why is it better to wake up in the morning and not at night?Should we have breakfast or better not eat anything at the beginning of the day?Is that what we eat at the right breakfast or do we do it out of habit?
It is impossible to submit everything to an assessment in search of the truth, so our brain helps us and simply organizes the information according to what we have learned, it is a strategy to facilitate our performance in the world.
An important aspect is that the illusion of truth, however strong, does not negate logical reasoning, which means that we always have the ability to follow processes that allow us to understand what is wrong and what is true.
It also means that the power of manipulation in our mind is limited. This brings us together with the illusion of truth only when we decide not to use other higher powers of reasoning. If we decide to use them, the illusion of truth is diluted.
As you can see, it would be interesting to ask you about the most important aspects of reality and why we believe what we believe, do we believe that something is true because we have heard it many times, or really because there is evidence that indicates it? ?