Changing beliefs about implausible autobiographical events: A little plausibility goes a long way

Three experiments investigated the malleability of perceived plausibility a nd the subjective likelihood of occurrence of plausible and implausible eve nts among participants who had no recollection of experiencing them. In Exp eriment 1, a plausibility-enhancing manipulation (reading accounts of the o ccurrence of events) combined with a personalized suggestion increased the perceived plausibility of the implausible event, as well as participants' r atings of the likelihood that they had experienced it. Plausibility and lik elihood ratings were uncorrelated. Subsequent studies showed that the plaus ibility manipulation alone was sufficient to increase likelihood ratings bu t only if the accounts that participants read were set in a contemporary co ntext. These data suggest that false autobiographical beliefs can be induce d in clinical and forensic contexts even for initially implausible events.