Illusory truth theory describes the phenomenon, by which people gradually accept a statement, which we initially reject, as true, if it is repeated often enough. To economise effort, our brains dampen down our reactions to any stimulus that is repeated, be that physical, intellectual or emotional. The downside of doing so is that we get acclimatised to things that may be harmful, including ideas.
Teams are as subject to this phenomenon as are individuals. They also provide an amplifier effect. If their colleagues seem to be accepting something as true, individual members are less likely to question it.
Challenging untruths and half-truths won’t normally happen until an unexpected, usual negative, event occurs that forces renewed attention — essentially waking up and resetting our brain’s first response mechanism. So, if we want to replicate this process on a day to day basis within a team, we have to build into regular routines an opportunity to release our capacity to be surprised. Here’s one approach to this.
At the beginning or end of a team meeting, ask everyone to share a surprising thought, which they will have researched beforehand. It has to be something that has made them think “That’s not what I would have expected!” For example, how few of the most quoted social science experiments have been replicated, or a weird anatomical fact from the animal kingdom.
The reason for this preamble is to turn on everyone’s curiosity. Once that has happened, the team can shift attention closer to home. For example, there may be an important new project coming up. Everyone has to name at least five “assumed truths” about, for example, the motivations of key stakeholders, the limitations of the technology, or what constitutes good practice. These assumptions are clustered and the team chooses a few to explore, on the basis of the degree of collective curiosity about them.
For each of the selected issues, one person (typically one, who raised the issue) facilitates a discussion that identifies “opposite truths” — different, sometimes opposing perspectives. These can then be put into a scale, with the original and the most different assumptions at the two ends of the scale. What would be the implications, if these alternatives were fully or partly true? If we changed the context for example, one or more of the values underlying assumptions), how would that affect how we define truth?
A suggestion, yet to be tested empirically, is that exercising the team’s curiosity muscles regularly leads to greater creativity overall. Now, is that a truth or an illusory truth, I wonder?
©️David Clutterbuck, 2025