In an article from Psyblog it is very nicely explained that we have to believe everthing we are reading in order to be able to process it.

In an ancient experiment (1993) 2 groups of people were shown a text about two criminals.

They were told that everything in this text written red font was a false.

Both groups started reading, but people in one group were distracted everytime they read the red text.

The first group was not distracted and had time to think about what they just read. The other group did not have time to think about it.

The red text  came in 2 versions as well. In the first version criminals seemed much more violent (e.g. he had a gun). The second version let them appear less guilty (e.g. he had starving kids to feed).

Now as the people had the story they had to decide on how long those criminals should go to prison.

Here is the average years in prison for the criminals as the four groups decided:

	not distracted while reading	distracted while reading
“nice” story	6.03 years	5.83 years
“violent” story	7.03 years	11.15 years

Explanation:

• People who were able to think about what they just read were less influenced by the lies (only 1 year difference).
• People who did not have a chance to think about what they read were very influenced by lies. (5.32 years difference).

What this means in real life:

Whenever you are telling bullshit, you can even tell them that you just lied to them, just make sure you overload them with new info immediately after.

Why you Believe Everything You Read, 2.0 out of 5 based on 1 rating