Brazil has just gone through an electoral cycle filled with disinformation and conspiracy theories. Many so absurd that it leads us to question: “Why do so many people believe in lies?”
Culpable is the brain.
An interesting article published by The Washington Post reports that many of the decisions we make as individuals and as a society depend on accurate information; however, our biases and psychological predispositions make us vulnerable to lies. As a result, disinformation is more likely to be believed and subsequently remembered – even after we know it was false.
“By default, people will believe anything they see or hear,” said Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive psychologist at the University of Bristol specializing in understanding how people respond to corrections of disinformation, to The Washington Post. In our daily lives, “this makes a lot of sense because most of the things we are exposed to are true,” he added.
At the same time, the more we see something repeated, the more likely we are to believe it is true. This “illusory truth effect” arises because we use familiarity and ease of comprehension as shortcuts to truth; the more something is repeated, the more familiar and fluent it seems, whether it is disinformation or fact.
So, if you hear something repeatedly, probabilistically, it will be the truth. Our current political environment, through social media, can repeat and amplify falsehoods with enormous reach.
We are also more susceptible to disinformation that fits our worldviews or social identities, and we can fall into confirmation bias, which is the tendency to seek out and favor information that fits what we already believe.
Moreover, several studies have shown that disinformation can still influence our thinking, even when we receive the correction, a phenomenon known as “continued influence effect.”
One of the biggest barriers to correcting disinformation is the fact that hearing the truth does not erase a lie from our memory. Instead, the lie and its correction coexist and compete to be remembered.
Ignoring disinformation requires an entire extra cognitive process to mark it as false in our memory. “But at this point, in a way, it’s too late because it’s already in your memory,” Lewandowsky stated.
Over time, our memory of the fact-check may fade, leaving us only with the disinformation.
Politicians often repeat lies and seem quite aware of the power of the “illusory truth effect” and “continued influence” in our brains.
Source: The Washington Post