idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Nachrichten, Termine, Experten
Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development have identified who is most susceptible to online misinformation and why. Their meta-analysis reveals surprising patterns on how demographic and psychological factors—including age, education, political identity, analytical thinking, and motivated reflection—affect people’s ability to assess the accuracy of information. For instance, individuals with higher levels of education are just as likely to fall for misinformation as those with a lower level of education. The work, published in the journal PNAS, provides important information for theory building and designing interventions.
Nearly five billion people worldwide receive their news from social media, and the impact of misinformation—especially on elections—is of increasing concern. Despite extensive research, it remains largely unclear who is particularly vulnerable to misinformation and why. “There is a lot of research on misinformation right now, but with the volume of work, it has become increasingly difficult to see the connections between different factors,” explains lead author Mubashir Sultan. The doctoral candidate at the Center for Adaptive Rationality researches misinformation and decision-making behavior online. He and his colleagues conducted a meta-analysis using data from the US, examining how factors such as education, age, gender, political identity, analytical thinking, partisan bias, motivated reflection, and familiarity with news have an impact on people’s online misinformation veracity judgments.
The researchers found no significant impact of education on people’s ability to distinguish between true and false information. This contradicts the widespread belief that more educated individuals are likely to be less susceptible to misinformation, especially as higher education teaches us critical thinking. The study also challenges assumptions about age and misinformation. While older adults are often portrayed as more vulnerable to fake news, the analysis found that they were actually better than younger adults at distinguishing between true and false headlines. Older adults were also more skeptical and tended to label headlines as false more often. Paradoxically, however, previous research has consistently shown that older adults engage with and share more misinformation online.
Political identity also played a key role. The meta-analysis confirmed previous research showing that individuals who identify as Republicans are more likely to fall for misinformation than those who identify as Democrats. Republicans were less accurate at assessing the veracity of news and tended to label more headlines as true, whereas Democrats were more skeptical. Individuals with higher analytical thinking skills—that is, who are better at logically evaluating information, identifying patterns, and systematically solving problems—performed better overall and were more skeptical (tending to classify news as false). People were more likely to believe that news that aligned with their political identity was true and to disregard news that was not aligned with their political identity—a phenomenon known as partisan bias. However, a counterintuitive finding was that individuals with higher analytical thinking were actually more susceptible to partisan bias. This tendency is known as motivated reflection, which is a cognitive process where individuals’ analytical reasoning works against them to protect their pre-existing beliefs, values, or partisan affiliations. The strongest effect in the meta-analysis was the influence of familiarity. When participants reported having already seen a news headline, they were more likely to believe it was true. This finding underscores the danger of repeated exposure to misinformation, particularly on social media.
To ensure the highest reliability, the researchers conducted an individual participant data meta-analysis—considered the gold standard in the field. “Unlike traditional meta-analyses that look only at effect sizes from previous studies, this approach allows us to work with and combine individual data from each study, making the analysis much more powerful,” explains Mubashir Sultan. The researchers evaluated raw data from 31 experiments conducted in the US from 2006 to 2023. They analyzed 256,337 decisions made by 11,561 participants aged between 18 and 88 years to investigate how four demographic factors (age, gender, education, and political identity) and four psychological factors (analytical thinking, partisan bias, motivated reflection, and familiarity) impacted people’s assessment of the accuracy of online information. Participants judged the veracity of news headlines covering topics such as politics and health. A special focus of the investigation was the distinction between the ability to recognize true and false news (discrimination ability) and response bias, which describes whether participants tend to classify news as generally true or false.
The results come at a critical time. “The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024 identifies misinformation as one of the greatest risks to the world in the next two years. With the rise of right-wing populism, the study's results are highly relevant and could influence debates on how to best combat misinformation in different demographic groups”, says co-author Ralf Kurvers, Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Adaptive Rationality of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
“The results highlight the urgent need to integrate media literacy and critical thinking skills into school curricula from an early age. Younger adults, despite being considered 'digital natives,' were less able to distinguish between true and false news,” Ralf Kurvers continues. More effective and age-appropriate media literacy programs tailored to this group are therefore crucial. Furthermore, given the strong effects of familiarity and political bias, interventions for helping people identify and share less misinformation must consider how information is presented and shared, especially on social media, where these effects are amplified. For example, effective interventions might emphasize commonalities and promote respectful dialogue across political boundaries.
This study is part of a larger initiative by the Center for Adaptive Rationality to investigate the dynamics of online environments. The researchers aim to gain a comprehensive understanding of how these digital spaces influence politically relevant behaviors and attitudes, while also developing a strategic roadmap to address the associated challenges. A team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development recently introduced a toolbox designed to help individuals combat misinformation more effectively.
Key points:
• Meta-analysis examines 31 US studies to determine how key demographic, and psychological factors influence susceptibility to misinformation.
• Older adults, Democrats, and individuals with higher analytical thinking skills are better at distinguishing between true and false news.
• Familiarity and partisan bias increase the tendency to classify news as true.
• People with higher analytical thinking skills tend to have a stronger partisan bias effect (motivated reflection).
• The results provide important insights for theory building and the development of interventions.
Sultan, M., Tump, A. N., Ehmann, N., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Hertwig, R., Gollwitzer, A., & Kurvers, R. H. J. M. (2024). Susceptibility to online misinformation: A systematic meta-analysis of demographic and psychological factors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(47), Article e2409329121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2409329121
Kozyreva, A., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Herzog, S. M., Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., Hertwig, R., Ali, A., Bak-Coleman, J., Barzilai, S., Basol, M., Berinsky, A. J., Betsch, C., Cook, J., Fazio, L. K., Geers, M., Guess, A. M., Huang, H., Larreguy, H., Maertens, R., Panizza, F., Pennycook, G., Rand, D. G., Rathje, S., Reifler, J., Schmid, P., Smith, M., Swire-Thompson, B., Szewach, P., van der Linden, S., & Wineburg, S. (2024). Toolbox of individual-level interventions against online misinformation. Nature Human Behaviour, 8, 1044–1052. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01881-0
https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/press-releases/misinformation Press release on the MPIB website
https://interventionstoolbox.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/ Toolbox mentioned in the text
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