Individuals who were primed to think about a time in which they had little control over their life demonstrated a greater preference for attributing false information to intentional deception than those who were primed to think about a time when they had a high level of control over their life.

Threats to personal control and false information attribution experiment


Individuals who feel that they have little control over their lives are more likely to attribute fake news to intentional deception.

Pepperdine University

It is more cognitively appealing to attribute fake news to intentional deceit because humans crave a worldview in which structure and predictability exist. Assuming intentional malice makes fake news more predictable than attributing fake news to random error.

Why attributing fake news to intentional deception is appealing

Axt, J. R., Landau, M. J., & Kay, A. C. (2020). Fake news attributions as a source of nonspecific structure. In R. Greifeneder, M. Jaffé, E. J. Newman, & N. Schwarz (Eds.), The psychology of fake news: Accepting, sharing, and correcting misinformation (pp. 220–234). London: Routledge. 

Fake news attributions as a source of nonspecific structure

A construct that describes the degree to which one desires predictability and structure in the world. Individuals high in PNS view a structured world as a source of meaning. When in situations that threaten structure, individuals will respond with exaggerated cognitive efforts to restore structure. 


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