I Believe Everything I Read

Especially if it's on a blog:

A 1993 experiment by psychologist Daniel Gilbert had participants read statements about robberies and then suggest a jail sentence. Some of the lines in the statements they read were true, and others -- ones that made the crimes sound much worse -- were false. Participants were told that false statements would appear in red and the true statements would appear in green. Here's the kicker: while reading the material, some of the participants were purposely distracted.

Gilbert found that participants who were distracted and didn't have time to process what they read gave the robbers worse jail sentences. They hadn't had time to analyze the green versus red statements and instead took the statement as a whole to make their decision.

Participants who were not interrupted gave the robbers more realistic sentences and suggested the robbers receive less jail time.

So what does this mean?

"Believing is not a two-stage process involving first understanding then believing," writes Dean. "Instead understanding is believing, a fraction of a second after reading it, you believe it until some other critical faculty kicks in to change your mind."