{"id":28698,"date":"2020-10-18T11:59:53","date_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:59:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=28698"},"modified":"2020-10-18T11:59:53","modified_gmt":"2020-10-18T18:59:53","slug":"the-psychology-behind-fake-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=28698","title":{"rendered":"The Psychology Behind Fake News"},"content":{"rendered":"
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BASED ON INSIGHTS FROM\u00a0Adam Waytz<\/a><\/div>\n

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Cognitive biases help explain our polarized media climate.<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s hard to venture online these days\u2014or switch on any cable network\u2014without coming across a heated discussion over \u201cfake news.\u201d Basic facts and figures, ranging from crowd sizes to poll numbers to whether or not it rained, now appear to be under negotiation. For many media consumers, it can feel as if we are living through an entirely new dystopian era, with each news cycle or press conference sending us further down the rabbit hole.<\/p>\n

But although the term \u201cfake news\u201d reflects our troubled political moment, the phenomenon is nothing new, and neither is the psychology that explains its persistence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a tendency for people to say, \u2018Well, given the social media channels we have now, these things can spread more quickly and have a greater effect than ever before,\u201d says\u00a0Adam Waytz<\/a>, an associate professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School. \u201cThere\u2019s actually more to it than that. Many of us remember when the most prominent news outlets in the world were reporting that Iraq might have weapons of mass destruction. That was before Facebook and Twitter.\u201d<\/p>\n

To understand how people in the same country, or same family, can have such vastly differing takes on reality, Waytz suggests we should focus not on the role of social media, but on the role of social psychology\u2014in particular, the cognitive bias that stems from our tribal mentalities. For Waytz, before we can learn to address our divisiveness, it is important to understand its roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an assumption that fake news exacerbates polarization,\u201d Waytz says. \u201cBut it might be the case that polarization exacerbates fake news.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The Many Flavors of Truth<\/strong><\/p>\n

To help explain our enduring susceptibility to fake news, Waytz points to two well-known psychological concepts. The first is \u201cmotivated reasoning,\u201d the idea that we are motivated to believe whatever confirms our opinions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re motivated to believe negative things about Hillary Clinton, you\u2019re more likely to trust outrageous stories about her that might not be true,\u201d says Waytz. \u201cOver time, motivated reasoning can lead to a false social consensus.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second concept is \u201cna\u00efve realism,\u201d our tendency to believe that our perception of reality is the only accurate view, and that people who disagree with us are necessarily uninformed,\u00a0irrational<\/a>, or\u00a0biased<\/a>. Na\u00efve realism helps explain the chasm in our political discourse: instead of disagreeing with our opponents, we discredit them. It is also why some are quick to label any report that challenges their worldview as fake.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt happens across the political spectrum,\u201d Waytz says, pointing to the false rumor\u2014circulated by liberals\u2014that President Trump changed the Bill of Rights to read \u201ccitizens\u201d instead of \u201cpersons.\u201d \u201cWe\u2019re all quick to believe what we\u2019re motivated to believe, and we call too many things \u2018fake news\u2019 simply because it doesn\u2019t support our own view of reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of our susceptibility to fake news has to do with how our brains are wired. We like to think our political convictions correspond to a higher truth, but in fact they might be less robust and more malleable than we realize.<\/p>\n

To some extent, says Waytz, our political beliefs are not so different from our preferences about music or food.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s an assumption that fake news exacerbates polarization. But it might be the case that polarization exacerbates fake news.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

In one unpublished study, Waytz and his fellow researchers presented participants with a number of statements. These included factual statements that could be proven or disproven (such as \u201cthe very first waffle cone was invented in Chicago, Illinois\u201d), preference statements that people could assess subjectively (such as \u201cany ice cream flavor tastes better when served in a crunchy waffle cone\u201d), and moral\u2013political belief statements that people could assess in terms of right or wrong (such as \u201cit is unethical for businesses to promote sugary products to children\u201d).<\/p>\n

In one study, a group of participants was directly asked to read and rate statements as resembling a fact, a preference, or a moral belief. In a second study, a group of participants had their brains scanned using fMRI while reading each statement and evaluating how much they agreed or disagreed with it. After the scan, they answered questions as in the first study about whether each statement resembled a fact, a preference, or a moral belief.<\/p>\n

Waytz and his colleagues found that, in both groups of participants, people processed the moral\u2013political beliefs more like preferences than like facts. Not only did participants directly rate moral\u2013political beliefs as \u201cpreference-like,\u201d but, says Waytz, \u201cwhen they read moral\u2013political statements while having their brains scanned, the scans showed a pattern of activity that\u2019s comparable to preferences.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Reality by Social Consensus<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although it may seem disconcerting that our brains treat political beliefs like ice cream flavors, it also suggests that certain beliefs\u2014like certain preferences\u2014are susceptible to change. \u201cWe\u2019ve all had the experience where at first we didn\u2019t like a band but later we become a fan,\u201d Waytz says, \u201cand our taste for certain foods certainly evolves throughout the course of our lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is particularly true for beliefs for which public consensus is mixed. A belief like \u201cchild labor is acceptable,\u201d against which consensus is high, is processed much like a fact. But beliefs that are more controversial, such as \u201cdog racing is unacceptable,\u201d are more susceptible to persuasion and attitude change and are overwhelmingly a product of the social consensus within a specific community.<\/p>\n

This is why \u201cfake news\u201d is not just about social media or our tendency to skim the news\u2014though yes, sites like Twitter and Facebook give misinformation the channels to spread at a pace we have never seen before, and roughly six in ten Americans\u00a0only read headlines<\/a>. Whatever the source of the news might be, the combined effects of motivated reasoning, na\u00efve realism, and social consensus or tribalism prevent people from reaching objective conclusions.<\/p>\n

According to Waytz, it\u2019s also why challenging falsehoods online might be a fool\u2019s errand.<\/p>\n

Satisfying though it might be for people to correct the inaccuracies or outright lies posted or tweeted by political opponents\u2014the \u201cBowling Green Massacre\u201d offered one such galvanizing moment for liberals\u2014deferring to the official record does not change the underlying social dynamic at play.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things we\u2019re learning,\u201d Waytz says, \u201cis that fact-based arguments don\u2019t always work.\u201d Take, for instance, a 2014 study by Brendan Nyhan, a professor of political science at Dartmouth. Nyhan\u2019s study found that even presenting parents with hard scientific evidence that vaccines do not cause autism did nothing to persuade those parents who had previously held that belief.<\/p>\n

A Possible Solution<\/strong><\/p>\n

So, how\u00a0do<\/em>\u00a0we overcome ideological biases and counteract the polarization that fuels \u201cfake news?\u201d Waytz says that social psychology also points to a way forward.<\/p>\n

Encouragingly, there is evidence that when you alert people to their biases, they tend to succumb to them less. A study involving Israelis and Palestinians\u2014two groups that are famously entrenched in na\u00efve realism\u2014demonstrated that when the concept of na\u00efve realism was explained to them, the groups were less hostile towards each other. \u201cWhen they were told, \u2018Hey, this bias exists,\u2019 even the most hawkish among them were more conciliatory,\u201d Waytz says.<\/p>\n

Other studies have shown that people can overcome na\u00efve realism by legitimizing one of their opponent\u2019s legitimate (or semi-legitimate) points.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf a Democrat and a Republican get together, and you have each of them offer a single argument from their opponent\u2019s side, it makes them more open to the idea that their reality is not the only one,\u201d Waytz says. Interestingly, studies have shown that when people are given a\u00a0financial<\/em>\u00a0incentive to reflect on views opposed to their own, they are even less biased in the judgements they make about the other side.<\/p>\n

Waytz also points out that this level of political discord may not last forever, at least when it comes to issues impacting people\u2019s daily lives. That\u2019s because we are most susceptible to many cognitive biases when we process information only shallowly. \u201cWe know that people process information more deeply when there\u2019s potential for them to lose something,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

But bridging the gap between two opposing views of reality might require deeper engagement with a more diverse set of data and news sources beyond what Twitter and Facebook can offer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe biggest danger isn\u2019t actually fake news\u2014it\u2019s tribalism,\u201d Waytz says. \u201cDepolarization only occurs when someone has the courage to speak out against their tribe.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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