Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 322
Correct the story that still explains it
The Continued Influence Effect shows why a correction can be remembered accurately while the discredited claim still shapes later reasoning
Premise
Correcting the record is not the same as repairing the explanation people carry forward. A person can remember that an earlier claim was retracted and still use it when reasoning about what happened next. The Continued Influence Effect (CIE) names that gap between factual correction and residual influence on inference.
For executives, “we issued a correction” is a process fact, not evidence that the mental model has been repaired. The operating question is what causal story recipients will retrieve when they next have to explain or decide under pressure.
What the model is: Continued Influence Effect in Knowledge →
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryEffects, Biases & Phenomena
- DomainMeaning & Clarity
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Effects, Biases & Phenomena
Identifies a bounded pattern in judgment, behavior or communication and the conditions under which it appears. Naming the pattern makes a recurring difficulty recognizable; it does not make the pattern inevitable or supply a complete explanation.
- KnowledgeContinued Influence Effect