As awareness of the harm caused by fake news has grown, so too have attempts to tackle the problem.  A recent study from the University of Strathclyde suggests that our levels of emotional intelligence may play an important role.

Participants in the research were asked to read a number of news items posted on social media before assessing whether they were real stories or fictitious ones.  Alongside each assessment was their rationale for the verdict.  The volunteers were also asked to complete an emotional intelligence (EQ) test.

The results suggest that people who scored highly for emotional intelligence were also most likely to correctly identify each news story.  A similar correlation was found between the educational level of each participant and their accuracy in the test.

Providing protection

“We assessed whether people were better able to disregard the emotionally charged content of such items and better equipped to assess the veracity of the information,” the researchers explain. “We found that, while distinguishing real news content from fake was challenging, on average participants were more likely to make the correct decision than not.”

The EQ angle is interesting because it has already been shown that people can be trained to improve their EQ, and so this could be a practical means of providing us with greater protection against fake news.

The researchers believe that the widespread nature of the study, with stories on a range of issues, such as crime, the environment, economics, and health, gives a certain validity to their findings.  The fictitious stories were also made to look as realistic as possible, and included things such as emotive language and brief information.