Fake news: Misinformation has its own psychology

Over the past several years, misinformation—particularly political misinformation—has been running rampant on social media. Misinformation and disinformation are not the same. Misinformation is merely having the facts wrong. Disinformation is false information used to deliberately mislead—think skewed reporting, half-truths, propaganda, or conspiracy theories.

Both have become a real problem and, with another presidential election in a couple of months, the situation is more concerning than ever.

But what’s the psychology behind it? Why do people believe these inaccuracies, seemingly without a shred of skepticism?

In a 2021 research article, “The Psychology of Fake News,” co-authors David Rand, Ph.D., and Gordon Pennycook, Ph.D., said political partisanship is not to blame for the belief in fake news.

“Rather than being bamboozled by partisanship, people often fail to discern truth from fiction because they fail to stop and reflect about the accuracy of what they see on social media.”

In other words, it is merely inattention, or being “mentally lazy,” that is the root of the problem. Those headlines that need to be fact-checked typically are not. And by the time they have been, the post has already gone viral. Since fact-checking takes time, many people do not do it.

A July 2023 article from McGill University reported on a study done collectively by researchers from MIT, Emory University, and the University of Regina in Canada. It was pointed out that it can be difficult to debunk conspiracy theories when some, it turns out, are true.

For example, the Watergate scandal was a conspiracy as was the tobacco industry knowing its product caused cancer while trying to cover it up with disinformation. Some believe climate change is a hoax while others believe COVID-19 was caused by the vaccine.

But recent studies have shown that some people are simply more susceptible to what is often called “yellow journalism.” Here’s how McGill broke the study down:

“Three tendencies were strongly correlated with conspiracy ideation, which is the inclination to endorse conspiracy theories. They were: perceiving threat and danger; relying on intuition and having odd beliefs and experiences; and being antagonistic and feeling superior.”

Similarly in July 2023, the Harvard Kennedy School conducted a survey with academic experts from Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, France, and the U.S. Their findings were in line with Rand and Pennycook.

These experts agreed that identity, confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and lack of trust in institutions were the reasons behind believing and sharing misinformation. They also added repeated exposure to misinformation as well as inattention, lack of cognitive reflection, and a lack of digital/media literacy.

In a 60 Minutes segment with Leslie Stahl earlier this year, Sander van der Linden, Ph.D., professor of social psychology and director of the Social Decision-Making Laboratory at Cambridge University. He is the author of “The Psychology of Misinformation,” and talked about “pre-bunking.”

“Pre-bunking is all about being preemptive,” he said, “and protecting each other from the spread of misinformation before it takes hold and radicalizes people.”

Pre-bunking empowers people with the ability to see through online manipulation and not become prey to it. Van der Linden noted that clinicians should not be in the business of telling people what to believe or what not to believe. But they can give them disseminating tools so they can help themselves guard against disinformation campaigns.

Rand and Pennycook also discussed the concept of pre-bunking. They thought it was an alternative that showed potential, but there was a downside to it. They cited the example of the “Bad News Game,” which uses a 10 to 20-minute interactive tutorial to instruct users in how to identify fake news and originates from van der Linden’s Social Decision-Making Laboratory.

“An important limitation of such approaches is that they are ‘opt in’ – that is, people must actively choose to engage with the inoculation technique (often for a substantial amount of time – at least in terms of the internet attention span). This is particularly problematic given that those most in need of ‘inoculation’ against misinformation (e.g., people who are low on cognitive reflection) may be the least likely to seek out and participate in lengthy inoculations.”

Last year, the American Psychological Association put out a list of recommendations to deter misinformation for clinicians, policymakers, and the media to follow. These suggestions include not repeating misinformation without including a correction; debunking misinformation using evidence-based methods; and working to reduce misinformation on social media by demanding transparency.

Lisa Fazio, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, was interviewed by CBS News earlier this year. She studies how people learn new information, both true and false.

“If someone you think is an expert tells you something, you are going to believe it. It’s way easier if we just don’t expose people to false information in the first place,” she said. “The more ingrained a false belief is, the closer it is tied to your identity. All of that is going to make it much more difficult to correct.”