How Headlines Change the Way We Think
By Maria Konnikova
Why Headlines Matter.” “Misleading Headlines Can Lead You Astray.” “How What You Read Affects What You See.” “How Bad Headlines Make Bad Memories.” “Eleven Reasons Headlines Are Important.” “You’ll Never Believe How Important an Accurate Headline Is.”
Those are all possible titles for this piece that I discussed with my editor. And, actually, the one that we picked may be the most important part of this article. By now, everyone knows that a headline determines how many people will read a piece, particularly in this era of social media. But, more interesting, a headline changes the way people read an article and the way they remember it. The headline frames the rest of the experience. A headline can tell you what kind of article you’re about to read—news, opinion, research, LOLcats—and it sets the tone for what follows.
Psychologists have long known that first impressions really do matter—what we see, hear, feel, or experience in our first encounter with something colors how we process the rest of it. Articles are no exception.
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once people are intrigued enough to read the story, they’ll get to the nuances just the same. But, as it turns out, reading the piece may not be enough to correct the headline’s misdirection.
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If I had titled this column “Why Headlines Matter,” I would be picking the broadest possible option. Next week, you might be able to remember that headlines are important but not be able to tell your friend exactly why. If I had called it “Misleading Headlines Can Lead You Astray,” you might have forgotten the details of the study showing that we can actually overcome factually misleading headlines. “Eleven Reasons Headlines Matter”? More people might have clicked, but they might not have retained the information. It’s not always easy to be both interesting and accurate, but, as Ecker’s study shows, it’s better than being exciting and wrong.