The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction

[Nevilledog]

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David Emery
@debunker
"Not only can belief in misinformation lead to poor judgements and decision-making, it also exerts a lingering influence on people’s reasoning after it has been corrected — an effect known as the continued influence effect."
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nature.com
The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction
Nature Reviews Psychology - Misinformation is influential despite unprecedented access to high-quality, factual information. In this Review, Ecker et al. describe the cognitive, social and...
4:29 PM · Jan 12, 2022

https://www.nature.com/articles/s44159-021-00006-y

Abstract

Misinformation has been identified as a major contributor to various contentious contemporary events ranging from elections and referenda to the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only can belief in misinformation lead to poor judgements and decision-making, it also exerts a lingering influence on people’s reasoning after it has been corrected — an effect known as the continued influence effect. In this Review, we describe the cognitive, social and affective factors that lead people to form or endorse misinformed views, and the psychological barriers to knowledge revision after misinformation has been corrected, including theories of continued influence. We discuss the effectiveness of both pre-emptive (‘prebunking’) and reactive (‘debunking’) interventions to reduce the effects of misinformation, as well as implications for information consumers and practitioners in various areas including journalism, public health, policymaking and education.

Introduction

Misinformation — which we define as any information that turns out to be false — poses an inevitable challenge for human cognition and social interaction because it is a consequence of the fact that people frequently err and sometimes lie1. However, this fact is insufficient to explain the rise of misinformation, and its subsequent influence on memory and decision-making, as a major challenge in the twenty-first century2,3,4. Misinformation has been identified as a contributor to various contentious events, ranging from elections and referenda5 to political or religious persecution6 and to the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic7.

The psychology and history of misinformation cannot be fully grasped without taking into account contemporary technology. Misinformation helped bring Roman emperors to power8, who used messages on coins as a form of mass communication9, and Nazi propaganda heavily relied on the printed press, radio and cinema10. Today, misinformation campaigns can leverage digital infrastructure that is unparalleled in its reach. The internet reaches billions of individuals and enables senders to tailor persuasive messages to the specific psychological profiles of individual users11,12. Moreover, social media users’ exposure to information that challenges their worldviews can be limited when communication environments foster confirmation of previous beliefs — so-called echo chambers13,14. Although there is some controversy about echo chambers and their impact on people’s beliefs and behaviours12,15, the internet is an ideal medium for the fast spread of falsehoods at the expense of accurate information16. However, the prevalence of misinformation cannot be attributed only to technology: conventional efforts to combat misinformation have also not been as successful as hoped2 — these include educational efforts that focus on merely conveying factual knowledge and corrective efforts that merely retract misinformation.

For decades, science communication has relied on an information deficit model when responding to misinformation, focusing on people’s misunderstanding of, or lack of access to, facts17. Thus, a thorough and accessible explanation of facts should overcome the impact of misinformation. However, the information deficit model ignores the cognitive, social and affective drivers of attitude formation and truth judgements18,19,20. For example, some individuals deny the existence of climate change or reject vaccinations despite being aware of a scientific consensus to the contrary21,22. This rejection of science is not the result of mere ignorance but is driven by factors such as conspiratorial mentality, fears, identity expression and motivated reasoning — reasoning driven more by personal or moral values than objective evidence19,23,24,25,26. Thus, to understand the psychology of misinformation and how it might be countered, it is essential to consider the cognitive architecture and social context of individual decision makers.

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[keithbvadu2]

1. Cokie's Law states that it does not matter if it is true or not. It's out there.

Mission accomplished: they got the message out to their base....

Cokie's Law - about politics and media coverage...

Cokie's Law states that it does not matter if it is true or not. It's out there.

Cokie Roberts journalist, author, reporter

Then they can apologize in a much smaller forum. (If they do)

[Goonch]

2. Gullibility, whether we like it or not, is a fundamental characteristic of human beings.