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memory
You remember the message but forget the unreliable source.
The sleeper effect occurs when the persuasiveness of a message increases over time as you decouple it from its source.
Initially, you might discount a claim because you heard it from an unreliable source. Weeks later, you remember the information but lose the context of who said it, making the claim seem more credible.
Your memory often discards context while holding onto the content.
Where this comes from
- Study
- Hovland, Lumsdaine, and Sheffield (1949)
- What the check found
- The definition is standard and the citation to the 1949 study (Experiments on Mass Communication) is correct. Absence of a quote is expected for general psychological definitions.
- Confidence
- Solid, with limits
Related
One of these every day, and every one names the study it came from. When a finding is contested, it says so.