Underscoring the challenges of combating misinformation, a new study released last month by Stanford University researchers suggests that partisan bias often trumps the truth in influencing how people consume information .
Although it may not seem surprising to those who have been paying attention, the results published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General challenge the assumption that only people with less education and conservative leanings are likely to be subject to misinformation or prejudice.
“What we found is that even with outrageous headlines – in which one would expect the truth to have a significant impact – political concordance (how the information aligns with beliefs personal) mattered twice as much,” said Geoffrey Cohen, co-author of the study. professor in the Department of Psychology at Stanford University. “We all know that political concordance can be important, but we don’t fully realize how important it is and how little truthfulness matters compared to what we think it should. »
The study was conducted alongside fellow psychology professor Michael Schwalbe using 15-20 minute online interviews over two months before the 2022 midterm elections. It was released during a campaign heated and hotly contested presidential election between Democratic candidate Kamala Harris and Republican candidate Donald Trump, who is trying to return to the White House after his defeat in 2020 against Joe Biden.
The questions mostly revolved around accurate and false stories about Trump.
“It was about the extent to which participants supported or opposed Trump. We created four types of news in a two-by-two design: some were pro-Trump, some were anti-Trump, some were false and some were true,” Cohen said. “We developed these stories ourselves and asked a matched U.S. Census sample to read the various headlines. They rated how true each story was, how much they believed it, and how likely they were to share it.
Beyond susceptibility to misinformation, the study found that partisan bias had a greater influence on individuals’ acceptance of truthful news than fake news. This means that people were more likely to reject truthful information that conflicted with their beliefs and accept false information that matched their biases.
The research team developed sensational fake headlines like “Trump Defeats Grandmaster Chess Champion” and “Trump Attended Private Halloween Gala With Sex Orgies Dressed As The Pope.” They found that Trump supporters and opponents were more likely to believe these headlines if they aligned with their political views, than to trust real headlines that contradicted their beliefs.
“We found that even in the face of these outrageous headlines, even when the effect of truth should be really, really big, given the nature of our stimuli, policy concordance still mattered twice as much,” Cohen said.
While both camps demonstrated bias toward their own political beliefs, Trump supporters reported higher levels of one-sided media consumption. They also demonstrated a stronger “illusion of objectivity,” that is, the belief that their own side was less biased and more objective than the opposing side.
“On the other hand, anti-Trump individuals appeared in our study as people believing the hateful and extremely negative news stories about Trump, even though they were not true,” Cohen said. “They preferred negative information about Trump to positive information, and for them, the effect of political alignment was about twice as strong as the actual truth of the story.” »
Mitigating or reducing bias among news consumers remains a complex challenge.
The study suggests several solutions, including fact-checking labels and “pre-supplementation” techniques—that is, exposing news consumers to the tactics used to spread misinformation. According to the study, raising awareness about human biases and encouraging introspection could help individuals recognize their own biases.
He also discussed media policy reforms, such as reinstating the American Fairness Doctrine, abolished by the Federal Communications Commission in 1987, to reduce hyperpartisan reporting and encourage more balanced media coverage. . This proposal would be controversial, however, as opponents of the Fairness Doctrine at the time claimed that it infringed on free speech, discouraged broadcasters from covering controversial topics, and imposed undue burdens on broadcasters while being impractical to apply objectively across the industry.
The study also advocates for information transparency, accountability and public trust in institutions through open data, whistleblower protections and stricter cybersecurity measures, seen as a means to guide the public towards reliable sources.
On an individual level, Cohen emphasized the importance of encouraging “humility” among information consumers, particularly in educational settings.
“One is humility. It’s almost like a civic virtue, right? » said Cohen. “But you have to be a defensive driver when it comes to your mind, understanding that others compete to control and influence it, but ultimately you control your own mind.”
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