Learning versus Unlearning: An Experiment on Retractions / Duarte Gonçalves, Jonathan Libgober, Jack Willis.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gonçalves, Duarte.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Libgober, Jonathan.

Willis, Jack.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w29512.

NBER working paper series no. w29512

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2021.

Summary:

Widely discredited ideas nevertheless persist. Why do we fail to "unlearn"? We study the effectiveness of retractions--the revoking of earlier information--in correcting beliefs. Our experimental design identifies belief updating from retractions-- unlearning--and compares it to updating from equivalent new information--learning. Subjects do not fully unlearn from retractions and update approximately one-third less from retractions versus new information. Although we document several well-known biases in belief updating, our results require an explanation that treats retractions as intrinsically different. We find evidence for one such mechanism, while ruling out several others: retractions are more complex than direct information.

Notes:

Print version record

November 2021.