Woozle effect
Syllables: Woo·zle ef·fectUK/ˈwuːz(ə)l ɪˈfɛkt/US/ˈwuz(ə)l əˈfɛkt/
Woozle effect 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.
Proper noun
Woozle effect
- 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.
- One general problem is what [Beverly] Houghton (1979) calls the "Woozle Effect" (based on a Winnie the Pooh story). The "Woozle Effect" begins when one investigator reports a finding, such as Gelles's (1974) report that 55 percent of his sample of families reported one instance of conjugal violence...1980 November, Richard J[ames] Gelles, “Violence in the Family: A Review of Research in the Seventies”, in Journal of Marriage and Family, volume 42, number 4, Minneapolis, Minn.: National Council on...
- Faulty science is seen in the "woozle effect," where questionable research findings become "established facts" despite being based on an unsatisfactory methodology. A cyclical dynamic is set in motion. If more blacks are reported as abusive, this is then reflected in incidence data (of reported...1989, Howard Dubowitz, Eli Newberger, “Pediatrics and Child Abuse”, in Dante Cicchetti, Vicki Carlson, editors, Child Maltreatment: Theory and Research on the Causes and Consequences of Child Abuse...
Woozle effect meaning in Arabic
Woozle effect in Arabic
- phenomenon whereby frequent citation of earlier publications leads to a mistaken public belief in something for which there is no evidence
- تأثير ووزل
Examples of Woozle effect in a sentence
- One general problem is what [Beverly] Houghton (1979) calls the "Woozle Effect" (based on a Winnie the Pooh story).1980 November, Richard J[ames] Gelles, “Violence in the Family: A Review of Research in the Seventies”, in Journal of Marriage and Family...
- Faulty science is seen in the "woozle effect," where questionable research findings become "established facts" despite being based on an unsatisfactory methodology.1989, Howard Dubowitz, Eli Newberger, “Pediatrics and Child Abuse”, in Dante Cicchetti, Vicki Carlson, editors, Child Maltreatment: Theory...
- The infamous woozle effect appeared for reports of attitudes to violence.2006, Donald G. Dutton, “The Social Psychology of the Perpetrator”, in Rethinking Domestic Violence, Vancouver, B.C.: UBC Press, →ISBN...
Origin of Woozle effect
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.
Questions about Woozle effect
- What does Woozle effect mean?
- Woozle effect means 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.
- What is Woozle effect in Arabic?
- Woozle effect in Arabic is تأثير ووزل. See Woozle effect meaning in Arabic.
- How do you use Woozle effect in a sentence?
- One general problem is what [Beverly] Houghton (1979) calls the "Woozle Effect" (based on a Winnie the Pooh story).
- What part of speech is Woozle effect?
- Woozle effect is a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce Woozle effect?
- Woozle effect is pronounced /ˈwuːz(ə)l ɪˈfɛkt/ (UK).
Words near Woozle effect in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: Woozle effect (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-Woozle effect.ogg.
Cite this entry: “Woozle effect.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/woozle_effect. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
