People in a negative emotional state are more strongly influenced by misinformation effects than those in a positive emotional state.


Valence of the emotional state and willingness to accept misinformation

People are at increased vulnerability to misinformation in high arousal conditions vs. low arousal conditions.

Arousal and vulnerability to misinformation

While arousal and valence have to been found to increase vulnerability to misinformation, these two factors do not universally predict the effect of misinformation on people, so there has to be some other explanation for why emotion can impact susceptibility to misinformation.

Limits of arousal and valence of emotional state accounting for acceptance of misinformation

- More attention and memory is devoted to goal-relevant information.
- Greater use of cognitive shortcuts (ex: stereotyping) to inform subsequent action.
- Leads to an approach-orientation rather than avoidance-orientation.

The basis of the cognitive impact of anger

Participants who were assigned to the anger condition were more suggestible than neutral participants. This means they could be more easily influenced and convinced by post-event misinformation.

Anger and suggestibility

Participants in the anger condition felt more confident in their answers to questions about the source of information than neutral participants. Also participants in the angry condition made judgements about the source of the items faster than those in the neutral condition. 

Anger's effect on speed and confidence in accepting misinformation

Emotions can play a large factor in the formation of political identity, as well as influence their belief in political misinformation. Anxiety and anger can result in differences in how an individual approaches political misinformation. Having anxiety can influence a person to further seek out political information learning, whereas being angry can influence a person to be more close-minded with the political information they are presented with.

Anxiety and Anger on Partisan Bias in Accepting Misinformation

 Situations in which public opinion is more heavily influenced by emotion than logic or evidence. 


Post-truth

- Negative emotional state vs. positive emotional state
- High arousal conditions vs. low arousal conditions
- The cognitive impact of anger 
- Anger and suggestibility
- Anger's effect on speed and confidence 
- Post-truth situation

University of Delaware

Arizona State University

Pepperdine University

Evidence suggests that emotional content may hinder one's ability to critically think about the accuracy of information because emotional information is processed more rapidly.

Emotion and Ability to Gauge Accuracy

- The information appears to be true or is believable 
- Being rewritten in different forms
- Being accessible through multiple sources
- Confirmation Bias 
- Authoritative bias 
- Targeting hot topics
- Indicating urgency
- The Sunk Cost Fallacy 
- emotional appeals 
- False Beliefs
- Labels can lead to errors in assessment of information
- False Memories
- Inaccurate evaluation of information
- Ease of Processing
- Underthinking
- Deliberative processes

Reasons Misinformation Spreads

Greenstein, M., Franklin, N. (2020). Anger increases susceptibility to misinformation. Experimental Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1027/1618-3169/a000489

Anger increases susceptibility to misinformation

Evidence suggests that those with higher levels of emotional intelligence have better fake news detection than those with lower levels of emotional intelligence. This is particularly true if the fake news is emotional in nature.

Emotional Intelligence and Fake News Detection

Influences of emotion on accepting misinformation

Misinformation Gets Attention Through Being Intertwined with Elements of Truth

Misinformation Gets Attention Through Being Rewritten in Different Forms

Misinformation Gets Attention Through Being Accessible Through Multiple Sources

Misinformation Gets Attention Through Targeting Hot Topics

A fallacy where individuals are less likely to give up an investment (financial or emotional) the more time they have put into it. 

The Sunk Cost Fallacy

A bias where individuals are more likely to follow figures of authority/influence. 

Authoritative Bias 

Many aspects of social media make it especially susceptible to the spread of misinformation. 
- Messages are easy to process, therefore easy to believe.
- Credibility is easily established by following friends, who often have similar views (which also establishes compatibility).
- Posts are shared by people you trust, establishes repetition and social consensus.
- Comments and related posts provide supporting evidence and familiarity.
- Users can gain a false sense of expertise, becoming very familiar with one perspective. 
- Lack of opposing ideas on a person’s feed is interpreted as a lack of different ideas overall.


The Susceptibility of Social Media to Misinformation

Errors in one's knowledge system that lead them to believe that an inaccurate piece of information is true.

False Beliefs

Labels can powerfully impact the way one assesses and interacts with information. Some labels have been known to distort perception and cause individuals to jump to inaccurate conclusions or misinterpret information.

The impact of labels on the assessment of information

Misinformation can spread because people are distracted by information other than accuracy. Some of these could include: party alignment, social relevance, or social reinforcement. 

Inattention-Based Account of Misinformation

A false memory is a recollection of an event, or details of an event, that did not actually occur. This phenomenon highlights that human memory is not a perfect, video-like recording of the past but is instead a reconstructive process capable of creating memories for things that never happened.

False Memories

- Cognitive biases 
- Accuracy of information is not a priority when gaining knowledge 
- The source of information is unknown or unreliable 
- Sources are often listed after the information has already been presented and embedded into one's knowledge base
- Evidence for a piece of information is not relevant  but gives the illusion of support 
- Alternative viewpoints are not considered
- Monitoring the accuracy of information takes great effort
- Working against one's own biases is difficult

Reasons for inaccurate evaluation of information

According to a study conducted by Cheng Zhou, Kai Li, and Yanhong Lu, misinformation containing specific linguistic qualities is more likely to be shared on social media. By examining the content of fake news posts and the number of shares, they found that misinformation containing persuasive and uncertainty words were more likely to be shared than true posts. The effect was moderated by the richness of the information. 

Linguistic Traits of Misinformation Online

During a crisis, social media is used to spread information. Anyone can take part in the spreading of information which can be bad. Trust during a crisis is important and if individuals' social media posts are not regulated or fact-checked like those belonging to an organization or agency misinformation spreads. Rumor's and misinformation can cause panic and lead to resources being spent on false leads.

Social Media is Unregulated: Double-edge Sword 

People are more likely to believe a claim that they have been exposed to repeatedly. Repetition increases the perception of social consensus, even when it is just one person’s account being repeated multiple times. The effect of repetition of messages is so strong that it can sway people who are unsure and even convince people who know it is false to accept it.


Repetition of Information

We are more likely to accept information that is easy to process. 


Ease of Processing

When people accept information intuitively, rather than using systematic reasoning to critically analyze it. Can affect people with lower cognitive ability, people who rely on intuitive thinking, and people in situations which elicit underthinking.


Underthinking

Discourse concerning the role of deliberation in the creation of false beliefs from misinformation has been centered on two main perspectives:
- Motivated System 2 Reasoning (MS2R)
- Classical reasoning

Misinformation: Deliberative Processes

Social media algorithms analyze user behavior and prioritize content the platform believes the user wants to see and is most likely to engage with.

Social Media Algorithm

Defined as the extent to which news, regardless of its accuracy, is believed. Calculated as the average of one's belief in true news and belief in false news

Overall belief in fake news

A motivated reasoning account that posits that deliberation causes individuals to belief information (real or fake) that aligns with their political beliefs. This theory hypothesizes that there is a positive association between analytic thinking and perceived accuracy of headlines that align with one's beliefs. 

Motivated System 2 Reasoning (MS2R)

Confirmation bias is the cognitive tendency to selectively focus on cases that validate our pre-existing intuitive beliefs while actively disregarding or forgetting cases that contradict them. This mental shortcut leads individuals to reinforce incorrect assumptions by ignoring disconfirming evidence.

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