No one likes feeling they've fallen prey to misinformation, and yet this is something everyone has to confront sooner or later. Misrepresenting and manipulating information has become more common, and its potentially damaging effects on health, civic life and consumer safety have become clearer.

To better understand what makes people susceptible to misinformation, how it spreads, and ways to combat it, an international panel of experts on the psychology of misinformation spent more than a year reviewing the scientific literature to develop recommendations on what makes people susceptible to misinformation.

“[E]veryone is susceptible to misinformation to some degree: we acquire it even when we know better.”

The panel has recently issued their report, “Using Psychological Science to Understand and Fight Health Misinformation: An APA Consensus Statement” through the American Psychological Association or APA. It defines misinformation as “any information that is demonstrably false or otherwise misleading, regardless of its source or intention,” and then addresses the sort of circumstances that make us more susceptible to it.

For example, people are more likely to believe false statements when they appeal to fear and outrage and other strong emotions. We are also more likely to believe misinformation that paints groups that we view as outsiders or different from us in a negative light.

Repetition is another way misinformation takes hold. The more false information is repeated, the more likely it is to come to be believed, even, or perhaps especially, if it contradicts previously accepted knowledge. This is why social media has been crucial to the rise and swift spread of unvetted opinions and misinformation.

“[M]ost online misinformation originates from a small minority of ‘superspreaders,’ but social media amplifies their reach and influence.” the report points out.

These “echo chambers” — isolated online communities of people with similar views — “allow ordinary users to distribute information quickly to large audiences, so misinformation can be policed only after the fact (if at all),” and that “impedes the spread of factual corrections.”

Perhaps most useful is the report's characterization of how misinformation becomes part of our thought processes. “It is effortful and difficult for our brains to apply existing knowledge when encountering new information; when new claims are false but sufficiently reasonable, we can learn them as facts. Thus, everyone is susceptible to misinformation to some degree: we acquire it even when we know better.”

What makes us likely to fall for false, unsupported information? We are more likely to believe misinformation if it comes from groups we belong to or sources we see as credible, the report explains, so we are less likely to ask the kinds of questions we should about information from familiar places.

It is possible to put the brakes on misinformation. The report highlights two ways this can be done: Systemically, through legislation and standards for technology; and through approaches focused on changing the individual behaviors that make unverified claims take root. The report identifies these as:

  • Fact-checking, or debunking false information
  • “Prebunking” — pre-emptively debunking misinformation to prevent people from falling for it in the first place
  • Asking people to consider the accuracy of information before sharing it, or rewarding people to be as accurate as possible
  • Raising people's awareness about healthy and unhealthy online behavior and media use through education and community outreach

The more false information is repeated, the more likely it is to come to be believed, even if it contradicts previously accepted knowledge.

Public policies can also help curb misinformation. The report suggests eight steps policymakers, scientists, the media and the public can take to help curb the spread of misinformation:

1. Avoid repeating misinformation without including a correction.
2. Collaborate with social media companies to understand and reduce the spread of harmful misinformation.
3. Use misinformation correction strategies with tools already proven to promote healthy behaviors.
4. Leverage trusted sources to counter misinformation and provide accurate health information.
5. Debunk misinformation often and repeatedly using evidence-based methods.
6. Prebunk misinformation to inoculate susceptible audiences by building skills and resilience from an early age.
7. Demand data access and transparency from social media companies for scientific research on misinformation.
8. Fund basic and translational research into the psychology of health misinformation, including ways to counter it.

There is still more to learn to better understand the behaviors related to misinformation and to develop the tools and checks needed to counter it, but awareness is a start.

You can access the report here.