In 2016, the media scholars Jieun Shin and Kjerstin Thorson analyzed a data set of 300 million tweets from the 2012 election. Research demonstrates that people who get positive feedback for posting inflammatory or false statements become much more likely to do so again in the future. “Depending on the platform, especially, humans are very sensitive to social reward,” he said. So when misinformation appeals to social impulses more than the truth does, it gets more attention online, which means people feel rewarded and encouraged for spreading it. “When you post things, you’re highly aware of the feedback that you get, the social feedback in terms of likes and shares,” Dr. As a result, misinformation is often prevalent among communities that feel destabilized by unwanted change or, in the case of some minorities, powerless in the face of dominant forces. This need can emerge especially out of a sense of social destabilization. And that makes us eager to consume information, true or not, that lets us see the world as a conflict putting our righteous ingroup against a nefarious outgroup.
In times of perceived conflict or social change, we seek security in groups. First, and perhaps most important, is when conditions in society make people feel a greater need for what social scientists call ingrouping - a belief that their social identity is a source of strength and superiority, and that other groups can be blamed for their problems.Īs much as we like to think of ourselves as rational beings who put truth-seeking above all else, we are social animals wired for survival. Put more simply, people become more prone to misinformation when three things happen. Nyhan writes, a growing body of evidence suggests that the ultimate culprits are “cognitive and memory limitations, directional motivations to defend or support some group identity or existing belief, and messages from other people and political elites.” Exposure to good information does not reliably instill accurate beliefs anyway. It’s not for want of good information, which is ubiquitous.
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