• MISINFORMATIONEvaluating the Truthfulness of Fake News Through Online Searches Increases the Chances of Believing Misinformation

    Conventional wisdom suggests that searching online to evaluate the veracity of misinformation would reduce belief in it. But a new study by a team of researchers shows the opposite occurs: Searching to evaluate the truthfulness of false news articles actually increases the probability of believing misinformation.

  • TRUTH DECAYFoolproof: A Psychological Vaccine Against Fake News

    By Sander van der Linden

    Even an optimistic account of our ability to spot fake news has to come to grips with the fact that not everyone needs to be fooled in order for misinformation to be highly influential and dangerous. After all, major elections are often decided on small margins, and cyber propaganda is playing an increasingly important role in tearing down the fabric of our democracy.

  • MISINFORMATIONLots of People Believe in Bigfoot and Other Pseudoscience Claims – This Course Examines Why

    By Craig A. Foster

    In an effort to combat misinformation, a new course looks at some of the common scientific reasoning failures which pseudoscience exploits. These include hand-picking anecdotes to support a belief, developing a set of beliefs which explain every possible outcome, promoting irrelevant research, ignoring contradictory information, and believing in unsubstantiated conspiracies. The course particularly highlights motivated reasoning, that is, the tendency for people to process information in  a way that helps them confirm what they already want to believe.

  • MISINFORMATIONWhy Did So Many Buy COVID Misinformation? It Works Like Magic.

    By Christina Pazzanese

    Misinformation and disinformation about COVID and government-led health measures to combat the pandemic hampered efforts to form a unified national response to the disease. Public health officials, who struggled to convince doubters and skeptics, are still working through how and why it happened. Harvard Law panelists say both misinformation and magic exploit how brains process information.

  • TRUTH DECAYEncouraging Individuals to Take Action Against Truth Decay

    Facts and analysis are playing a diminishing role in American public life—a phenomenon called Truth Decay—so RAND is launching a public information campaign on social media to build understanding of Truth Decay and how individuals can tackle it by scrutinizing information they believe and share.

  • TRUTH DECAYFact Checks Effectively Counter COVID Misinformation

    By Jim Hanchet

    New study finds that journalistic fact checks are a more effective counter to COVID-19 misinformation than the false news tags commonly used by social media outlets. “We find that more information may be an antidote to misinformation,” conclude the authors of the study.

  • Truth DecayEnough with the Quackery, Pinker Says

    By Colleen Walsh

    “Another contributor [to the opposition to vaccines] is the Myside bias, probably the most powerful of all the cognitive biases, namely, if something becomes an article of faith within your own coalition, and if promoting it earns you status, that is what you believe,” says Harvard’s professor of psychology Steven Pinker, whose latest book — Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters – has just been published. “It’s somewhat arbitrary which positions get attached to which coalitions…. It used to be the tree-hugging Mr. and Ms. Naturals who were suspicious of vaccines — a romantic opposition to science and tech made vaccine resistance a leftish cause. But now it’s more attached to the right. In either case, people are more adamant about protecting the sacred beliefs of their political tribe than looking at the best evidence.”

  • Truth decayDetecting Conspiracy Theories on Social Media

    Conspiracy theories circulated online via social media contribute to a shift in public discourse away from facts and analysis and can contribute to direct public harm. Social media platforms face a difficult technical and policy challenge in trying to mitigate harm from online conspiracy theory language. Researchers are working to improvemachine learning to detect and understand online conspiracy theories.

  • ExtremismResearch Suggests Racism Could Be a Genetic Trait

    Despite increased information and knowledge, racism is still a powerful force around the world. How can racist attitudes and practices have survived so many generations? A new study argues that beliefs that some groups are superior to others are deeply influenced by genetics.

  • Conspiracy theoryFinding Links between Belief in Conspiracy Theories and Political Engagement

    A belief in the existence of conspiracies — particularly among followers of extremist movements — seems to go hand-in-hand with the assumption that political violence is an acceptable option. However, the role that a belief in conspiracies actually plays in political extremism and the willingness to use physical force has to date been disputed by psychologists.

  • Conspiracy theoryDon’t Blame Social Media for Conspiracy Theories – They Would Still Flourish without It

    By Joseph E. Uscinski and Adam M Enders

    COVID-19 conspiracy theories have encouraged people to engage in some dangerous activities in the past few months. There is no simple explanation for why people believe conspiracy theories like these, and the best researchers can say is that the causes of such beliefs are complex and varied. And yet journalists, activists and politicians are increasingly blaming the internet, and social media in particular, for the spread of conspiracy theories. The problem with such accusations is that the evidence paints a more nuanced picture.

  • RulesAs States Reopen, Tensions Flare Between the Rule Followers and Rule Breakers

    By Michele Gelfand

    As countries reopen their economies, tensions escalate between those who believe it is safe now to resume normal business activity – and even ignore social distancing and the need to wear face masks – and those who prefer a more cautious, slower path toward something resembling pre-coronavirus life. These differences aren’t just random personality types; they reflect our primal social mindsets – what I call “tight” and “loose” mindsets. And unless these differences are better understood, it will be that much more difficult to navigate life under COVID-19.

  • Stability“Insider” Knowledge to Enhance Stability Operations in Remote Regions

    U.S. forces operating in remote, under-governed regions around the world often find that an area’s distinct cultural and societal practices are opaque to outsiders, but are obvious to locals. Commanders can be hindered from making optimal decisions because they lack knowledge of how local socio-economic, political, religious, health, and infrastructure factors interact to shape a specific community. DARPA’s Habitus program seeks to provide commanders with “insider” knowledge of local environments.

  • Truth decayHow Partisan Hostility Leads People to Believe Falsehoods

    Researchers now have a better idea of why people who rely on partisan news outlets are more likely to believe falsehoods about political opponents. And no, it isn’t because these consumers live in media “bubbles” where they aren’t exposed to the truth. Instead, it has to do with how partisan media promote hostility against their rivals.

  • Truth decayFlagging False Facebook Posts as Satire Helps Reduce Belief

    If you want to convince people not to trust an inaccurate political post on Facebook, labeling it as satire can help, a new study finds. Researchers found that flagging inaccurate political posts because they had been disputed by fact-checkers or fellow Facebook users was not as good at reducing belief in the falsehoods or stopping people from sharing them. However, labeling inaccurate posts as being humor, parody or a hoax did reduce Facebook users’ belief in the falsehoods and resulted in significantly less willingness to share the posts.