Narrative Hysteresis: The Presumption Gap, Gendered Epistemic Risk, and Reputational Non-Reversibility After Public Accusation

Abstract

Legal systems can reverse convictions, dismiss charges, and acquit defendants, but public narratives are not designed to reverse with comparable speed or precision. This article develops narrative hysteresis as a theory of reputational path dependence after public accusation. It integrates the continued influence effect, stigma and degradation theory, digital vigilantism, moral typecasting, sexual-violence scholarship, and organizational risk management to explain why allegations can continue to shape trust, employability, and social standing after their evidential or legal basis has weakened. The paper introduces four related constructs: the Presumption Gap, which measures the divergence between legal uncertainty and pre-adjudicative social sanction; Epistemic Moralization, in which questioning a dominant moral narrative becomes itself morally suspect; Asymmetric Reputational Exposure, which captures unequal identity protection and searchability across parties; and Institutional Risk Asymmetry, which lowers the evidential threshold for precautionary exclusion when organizations perceive under-reaction as more reputationally costly than over-reaction. A formal model specifies a narrative hysteresis coefficient and an institutional sanction threshold. The framework is examined through a structured public-case comparison, anchored by the Singapore Panfilov-Chia sequence and contrasted with the Parti Liyani, Christopher Jefferies, and Cliff Richard cases. The analysis deliberately distinguishes acquittal from proof of fabrication and treats complainant anonymity in sexual-offence cases as a legitimate protective institution rather than evidence of wrongdoing. Six propositions and a four-study empirical programme are developed to test accusation stickiness, gendered moral typecasting, institutional threshold shifts, and correction design. The article concludes that the next frontier of procedural justice is not merely accuracy at judgment, but reversibility after error or uncertainty: institutions that can impose reputational costs should also develop mechanisms capable of restoring status when legal or evidential states change.