I wrote this back in February. My area of Psychology research is disinformation [View all]

I wrote this back in February. My area of Psychology research is disinformation. Want to know why people cling to silly accusations like “genocide” and “slaughter” and these lies are so popular, when all the facts demonstrably point in the opposite direction? Read on…

An effective disinformation campaign needs repetition.

An effective disinformation campaign needs repetition.

An effective disinformation campaign needs repetition.

Ever wondered why that is? Ever wondered how words and phrases take hold? Allow me to explain.

It’s called Illusory Truth Effect. When the same false information is repeated time and time again, often people will come to believe it. Even when people set out knowing that bit of false information is untrue.

It’s heavily connected to social proof (see post in my Highlights). Illusory Truth Effect is when our gut feeling that something must be true overrides our knowledge that it is not. Particularly when coming from an in-group of people we feel social connection to and it is targeted against an out-group (“the other side”).

It’s as if social media was designed to exploit this psychological tendency. In the social media age, it is as easy as 🔁 to share disinformation. Just a press on a screen. Malign actors know that all they have to do to help disinformation gain traction is repeat it again and again. Bot farms comprising thousands of social media accounts are useful to “seed” this sharing and repetition.

“Hey, that post has thousands of likes and it supports what I believe to be right. Must be true. Repost/share/retweet.”

You might think you’re a rational, critical thinker. I know I try to be! But that doesn’t matter. We all make 35,000 decisions every day. It is psychologically impossible for all of them to be rational. Now factor in the deluge of information daily over social media (the average users spends 2.5hrs a day on social media! That’s a lot of info). Nobody has a chance of analysing it all.

The brain relies on biases and heuristics - mental shortcuts - to prevent cognitive overload in the face of all this decision-making and information. This often leads to errors in judgment.

Why? Well, 90-odd% of the time we’re thinking automatically. It’s easier; less strain than rationally thinking things through. This is called process fluency. If it’s effortless to process a piece of information, we feel like it must be accurate.

We are also prone to the anchoring effect - a preference for pre-existing knowledge over new information. Combine this with social proof, biases, processing fluency, Illusory Truth Effect, and the ease of passing that information on using social media, and you have a cocktail made for sharing incorrect information.

So if you’ve ever wondered how plainly incorrect information gets shared and believed - that’s how. That’s how a lie gets around the world before the truth has its boots on.

Illusory Truth Effect is tricking you.

Illusory Truth Effect is tricking you.

Illusory Truth Effect is tricking you.

Illusory Truth Effect is tricking you.

Or is it? Do your own confirmation and research. It’s the only way to be certain of anything you see online.

Link to tweet