Fake news are now an integral part of our daily lives.
Massively spread by social networks and often by traditional media, these news items are propagated with various aims ranging from political manipulation to propaganda, from social chaos to pure and simple misinformation.
Detailed and elaborate, fake news are increasingly difficult to distinguish from true and verified information. But it's not just thanks to their accuracy that we consider them plausible and credible. Several psychological mechanisms deeply rooted in our way of thinking come into play when influencing our choices.
Among the most decisive, we can certainly mention confirmation bias, the illusion of truth, and dynamics related to groupthink.
- Confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is an automatic mechanism that leads us to believe what is most convenient for us. Our tendency to seek, interpret, and remember information in a way that confirms our beliefs unconsciously leads us to give more weight to news that supports our opinions.
Conversely, we are skeptical of those that contradict them.
This phenomenon is significantly amplified by social networks, which show us almost exclusively personalized content based on our interests, thus strengthening our beliefs without exposing us to different points of view.
- Illusion of truth
The illusion of truth is another psychological mechanism that leads us to consider information true solely based on the number of times we read or hear it. The more a particular piece of news reaches our attention, the more we tend to believe it is true.
This happens because our brain associates familiarity with credibility. If we repeatedly see a fake news item on social media, perhaps shared by friends or pages we follow, we begin to consider it reliable, even in the absence of concrete evidence.
In some ways, it's a mechanism very similar to advertising, where a message repeated many times becomes familiar and therefore more convincing.
- Groupthink
The last ally of fake news is, without a doubt, groupthink.
Beyond individual processes, this leverages group dynamics that appeal to strong social conditioning, making fake news even more persuasive. In the logic of groupthink, one tends to conform to the dominant opinions of our environment, especially when we are in communities with similar ideas to our own.
This condition creates "information bubbles" where news (true and false) is continuously reinforced by opinions, impressions, and stances without true confrontation (Sunstein, C. R., 2001. Republic.com - Princeton University Press.)
Here too, thanks to algorithms that select content based on our interests, social networks amplify this effect by continuing to show similar content and excluding those that might refute them.
A perverse spiral that will magnify our beliefs, exponentially amplifying any news that aligns with our convictions.
Understanding the psychological mechanisms that make us vulnerable to fake news is the first step to defending ourselves from misinformation. This awareness, combined with source verification and the development of different perspectives, can reduce the impact of this phenomenon, which is far from disappearing.
Marco Tomasone
eXtrapola editorial staff