Repeated information: what familiarity does not prove
In an investment or partnership decision, the same claim may reappear in a presentation, a briefing note and an exchange with a supplier. The managerial question is specific: how can we prevent this circulation from being mistaken for an accumulation of independent evidence?
What the literature establishes
Lynn Hasher, David Goldstein and Thomas Toppino (1977, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior) showed that repeating statements could increase their perceived validity. Their experiment involved statements presented repeatedly, whose truthfulness participants were asked to assess. It establishes an effect of repetition on judgement, not an improvement in the accuracy of the information.
Why knowledge is not always enough
Lisa K. Fazio, Nadia M. Brashier, B. Keith Payne and Elizabeth J. Marsh (2015, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General) showed that relevant knowledge did not consistently protect against this effect. In their experiments, repetition could increase the credibility of false statements even when participants possessed the knowledge needed to contradict them. The ease with which a statement is processed can therefore contribute to truth judgements without the available knowledge actually being brought to bear.
The premature conclusion
It would be excessive to conclude that repeated information should be treated as inherently suspect. Converging independent observations are different from several documents reproducing the same claim. The useful distinction is therefore not between new and familiar information, but between independent corroboration and simple recirculation. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these experiments do not demonstrate
These experimental studies do not directly measure the quality of industrial decisions made using documented evidence and under regulatory responsibility. They cannot quantify the effect of repetition in a pharmaceutical committee, a research team or a logistics management team. They warrant attention to the provenance of claims, but do not demonstrate that checking sources alone improves economic outcomes.
A practical check in Bâle
Within SHR’s « Prise de décision » programme, an exercise applicable in Bâle is to examine a decision dossier concerning a pharma or life sciences partnership, Rhine logistics or international R&D. For each decision-critical claim repeated across several materials, the team records the original source, subsequent repetitions and any independent corroboration. The measure is the proportion of these claims whose provenance has been checked, with an explicit status: corroborated, derived from a single source or unresolved. Comparing this proportion before and after the exercise verifies an improvement in traceability, without treating it as proof of a better decision. To go further: explore the Decision-making training in Basel, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
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