As the torrent of misinformation has grown in recent years, and indeed has our understanding of its impact, a number of studies have attempted to shed light on why we are vulnerable to fake news and who is most likely to spread it.
The latest such study comes from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, which identifies the personality type that is both most likely to share misinformation and least likely to absorb any warnings as to the reliability of the content.
Spreading misinformation
The study found that while both conservatives and liberals are likely to share misinformation to a certain extent, it was conservatives who also scored poorly on conscientiousness who were most guilty. Conscientiousness is one of the “big five” personality traits, and describes our ability to be reliable, cautious, diligent, and generally in control of our impulses.
The study builds on a growing canon of research showing that conservatives are more likely to share fake news than liberals, with the researchers hoping that their insight into the role of conscientiousness adds an interesting nuance to this picture.
“Political polarization is very high right now, so the existing research presents a problematic generalization,” the researchers say. “If we paint every conservative with the same broad brush, we’re just furthering political polarization. In this research, we argue that the effects are much more nuanced and limited to a small subset of people with conservative values.”
Being diligent
The researchers conducted eight experiments featuring over 4,600 volunteers to try and understand why we share misinformation, even when we’re warned that it’s probably false. The results highlighted the crucial role conscientiousness plays.
It transpired that among those conservatives who regularly shared misinformation, the time spent on social media was largely irrelevant. Indeed, so was their general support for the ideas contained in the story or even their support for a particular political figure. Instead, the key seemed to be simply a desire to cause trouble.
“We were shocked to see this had nothing to do even with a distrust for mainstream media,” the researchers say. “It had more to do with their dissatisfaction with current political and social institutions, and a desire to break those down in favor of anarchy.”
“Unfortunately, this desire is not assuaged even when the participant saw a warning that the story they were sharing may be false. So one critical question for the future is if there’s anything that can help reduce this behavior, maybe by addressing these individuals’ desire for chaos.”
The researchers hope that their work provides a degree of nuance to our general understanding of why misinformation spreads online and that personality is as important as political beliefs.
“Conscientiousness appears to be a truly important factor determining the relationship between a person’s political ideology and whether they share disinformation,” they conclude. “That behavior almost completely disappeared in people with higher levels of conscientiousness.”
