Ask a Psychologist: Why Do We Fall for Fake News?

What makes people fall for misinformation? 

When we scroll through our feeds on social media, we are not always thinking about truth. Even when we do explicitly evaluate veracity, we often go with our guts. 

We rely on cognitive ‘shortcuts’ that save time and effort. For example, repeated content feels easier to process than new content, and people misinterpret this subjective ease as evidence of truth. This illusory truth effect happens even when repeated claims contradict well-known facts, which is troubling because politicians often repeat lies. 

Our own moods also leave us vulnerable. Telling people to rely on their emotions increases their acceptance of fake news. And adding a single moral-emotional word to social media posts about controversial topics increases their spread by a factor of 20%. All the while, people overlook or forget the source of news and whether that outlet is reliable.

In addition to these basic memory and judgment errors, people are generally more likely to believe news that aligns with their partisanship. The need to belong competes with our goal of consuming and sharing accurate content.

Your research has found that older adults both see and share the most fake news. What strategies can be used to protect especially vulnerable populations from misinformation?

Blatantly false content only makes up 6% of the average person’s online news diet, but some groups are at increased risk. During both the 2016 and 2020 U.S. presidential elections, people over 65 were more  likely to visit untrustworthy sites, compared with young adults. Older Facebook users also shared seven times more links to fake news sites than young users.

It is tempting to blame this pattern on cognitive impairments. But different cognitive abilities decline at different rates, and some don’t decline at all. For example, older adults have more general knowledge about the world, and this includes political knowledge. Instead, it is more likely that shifting social goals are to blame.

As we age, we focus on close social relationships at the expense of peripheral ones. Online, this translates into fewer ‘weak ties’ – think of that person you follow on Facebook, but have never met in real life. Older adults are less likely to have these connections. They may come to their timelines expecting to see credible content, assuming ‘my close friends and family wouldn’t share fake news.’ This lines up with the observation that, in general, we become more trusting later in life.

One promising solution fills gaps in digital literacy. Older users are relative newcomers to social media. They may not be aware that algorithms populate their newsfeeds, that some accounts are bots or trolls, or even that clicking ‘share’ implies agreement or endorsement. One digital literacy course specifically designed for seniors taught skills like reverse image search and lateral reading, which entails opening a new tab or window to research the source or the claim. After the intervention, truth discernment increased by 21%.

The proliferation of AI-generated content and deepfakes has made it more difficult to discern what is real versus fake online. What are some tricks to spotting fake news and misinformation?

Slow down and ask yourself “Is this information biased or unlikely to be true?” Pausing before sharing is particularly important when headlines favor your political party.

Be sure to read articles, not just headlines. A whopping 59% of links on X, formerly known as Twitter, are not clicked on before they’re shared. These are missed opportunities to spot signs that a site is shady.

Look closely at URLs, which sometimes differ from mainstream sites by only a few letters. 

Consider whether images have been presented out of context or manipulated. Most visual misinformation online actually does not use generative AI. ‘Cheap fakes’ mislead through miscaptioning and inappropriately cropping photos, or changing the speed of videos.

Keep an eye out for bots, which intentionally sow political discord on social media platforms – these accounts often lack photos or bios, have very few followers, and write lots of posts in short amounts of time.

And keep in mind that while conspiracies do sometimes occur, they are typically revealed by investigative journalists or whistleblowers, not anonymous users on Reddit.

Brashier's research has been funded in part by the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health, among others.