Numerous psychological findings have shown that mere exposure to ideas makes those ideas seem more true, a finding commonly referred to as the “illusory truth” effect (e.g. Hasheret al., 1977). In the presence of pervasive misinformation, this basic feature of cognition may undermine the functioning of a democratic society (Pennycook et al., 2018). However, genuine beliefs do not only produce judgments of truth, they also imply other beliefs and drive decision-making. Here, we sought to examine whether mere exposure to statements produces genuine beliefs by examining whether people draw inferences from statements after mere exposure. Surprisingly, and in contrast to familiarity-based accounts of the illusory truth effect (e.g. Dechene et al., 2010), we found that exposure to “premise” statements affected participants’ truth ratings for novel "implied" statements. This “illusory implication” effect suggests that exposure to false statements has further-reaching impacts than previously thought and calls for a new mechanistic account of these effects.

People’s expectations play an important role in their reactions to events. There is often disappointment when events fail to meet expectations and a thrill to having one’s expectations exceeded (e.g. Mellers et al., 1997). Here, we examined how expectations influenced people's reactions to events with serious moral consequences, and their moral decisions concerning such situations. Participants judged pairs of events where a victim experienced a similar harm, but where victims were at different prior risk of being harmed (e.g. someone killed by a drunk driver on a Friday night versus a Saturday morning). People found unexpected harms to be more upsetting and they were more likely to choose to prevent an unexpected harm than an expected one. Further studies explored other factors that might have influenced judgments beyond expectations. This bias may have pernicious moral consequences, potentially leading to reduced concern for victims in most need of help.