Promoting eyewitness testimony quality: Warning vs. reinforced self-affi rmation as methods of reduction of the misinformation effect

In a typical experiment on the misinformation effect, subjects fi rst watch some event, afterwards read a description of it which in the experimental group includes some incorrect details, and answer questions relating to the original event. Typically, subjects in the misled experimental group report more false details than those from the control group. The main purpose of the presented study was to compare two methods of reducing the misinformation effect, namely – warning against misinformation and reinforced self-affi rmation. The reinforced self-affi rmation consists of two elements: the participants recall their greatest achievements of life, and are being given a positive feedback about their performance in a memory task. The obtained results showed that the reinforced self-affi rmation was more effective than warning, although the latter also caused a significant reduction of the vulnerability to misinformation.