Woozle effect

Meaning

Proper Noun

• The phenomenon whereby frequent citation of earlier publications leads to a mistaken public belief in something for which there is no evidence, giving rise to an urban myth.

Origin

• A reference to the book Winnie-the-Pooh (1926).
• by English author A. A. Milne (1882–1956), in which the characters Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet follow their own tracks in the snow, believing them to be the tracks of the imaginary “Woozle”. The term in its precise form is believed to have been coined by Beverly Houghton in a paper entitled Review of Research on Women Abuse delivered at the annual meeting of the American Society of Criminology held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, 7–10 November 1979: see the 1980 quotation. However, earlier mentions of the Woozle in this context exist.