I was this moment moved to search for the origin of a certain quote, and the process described in that paper seems to apply quite well to the promulgation of wrong citations. Here's a history of the idea of "three stages of truth". Actually, the situation for citations is even worse. The doctors in the example of the paper are observing their own outcomes as well as copying their predecessors' decisions, but someone copying a citation may make no observation of its accuracy.

More generally, memetic propagation.