Correcting statistical misinformation about scientific findings in the media: Causation versus correlation.

Although retractions significantly reduce the number of references people make to misinformation, retracted information nevertheless persists in memory, continuing to influence reasoning. One hundred and twenty-nine lay participants completed an adaptation on the traditional continued influence paradigm, which set out to identify whether it is possible to debunk a piece of common statistical misinformation: inappropriate causal inference based on a correlation. We hypothesized that participants in the correction condition would make fewer causal inferences (misinformation) and more correlational inferences (correction) than those in the no-correction condition.