Washington — Both conservative and liberal Americans share fake news because they don’t want to be excluded from their social circles, according to a study published by the American Psychological Association.
“Conformity and social pressure are key motivators for the spread of fake news,” said lead researcher Dr. Matthew Asher-Lawson, assistant professor of will science. Inseed, a French business school. “If one of your online peers is sharing fake news, you feel pressured to share it too, even if you don’t know if it’s true or false.”
This study Journal of Experimental Psychology: General.
According to the Brookings Institution, the prevalence of fake news is contributing to increased political polarization and distrust of democratic institutions. But fake news doesn’t necessarily spread with dark motives or calls to action. Researchers began studying the issue after noticing that people were sharing fake news on their social networks without any apparent malicious or ideological purpose.
“Political ideology alone does not explain people’s propensity to share fake news within their social groups,” Lawson said. “Many factors come into play, including a basic desire to fit in and not be excluded.”
One experiment analyzed the tweets and political ideology of more than 50,000 pairs of Twitter users in the United States, including tweets sharing fake news and nonpartisan news from August to December 2020. Find out what types of accounts Twitter users follow (determined through a network-based algorithm that estimates ) The number of tweets between pairs of Twitter users within the same social circle was measured. If one Twitter user shares a fake news article and the other does not share the same article, Twitter users will be less likely to interact with each other over time. The same effect was found regardless of political ideology, but was stronger for participants who were more right-leaning.
In the second experiment, we analyzed the 10,000 Twitter users who shared fake news in the previous test, as well as another group representing general Twitter users. Twitter users who shared fake news were more likely to exclude other users who did not share the same content, suggesting that social pressure may be particularly acute in the fake news ecosystem.
Across several additional online experiments, participants showed a decreased desire to interact with social connections who did not share the same fake news. Participants who were more concerned about the social costs of not fitting in were also more likely to share fake news.
Fake news may seem prolific, but previous research shows that fake news accounts for only 0.15% of Americans’ daily media consumption, and that 80% of fake news sharing is shared by 1% of individuals. is known to be in charge. Another study found that election-related misinformation on Twitter decreased by 73% after Donald Trump was banned from the platform.
Lawson said reducing the spread of fake news is difficult because many complex factors are involved in people’s decisions to share it, and the role of social media companies is not always clear.
“Advanced information” techniques, which inform people about how misinformation spreads and emphasize the importance of news accuracy, can help reduce the spread of fake news. But starting to win the war against misinformation may require finding ways to alleviate peer pressure in online spaces, Lawson said.
article: “Tribalism and Hardship: The Social Costs of Not Sharing Fake News” by Dr. Matthew Asher Lawson; InseedShikhar Anand, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, Hemant Kakkar, Ph.D., Duke University; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Generalpublished online on March 9, 2023.
Dr. Matthew Asher Lawson, We may contact you by email.