Lecture 3, part 1: Fake news, alternative facts, credibility
Confirmation bias
A tendency to be more responsive to evidence that confirms your beliefs rather than evidence that
might challenge your beliefs.
- We cannot achieve confirmation via hypothesis testing
→ you can confirm, but you can’t prove, because even if all available evidence supports a
hypothesis, there may still be further evidence that disproves it.
When disconfirming evidence is available:
- people fail to use it to adjust their beliefs
- people reinterpret the evidence to diminish the impact
When people encounter confirming evidence, they take it at face value.
People show better memory for confirming evidence than for disconfirming evidence.
People fail to consider alternative hypotheses that might explain the available data just as well.
Good elements of confirmation bias:
- It helps to maintain stability in the understanding of the world
- It often leads to overruling of evidence that should be overruled
Belief perseverance
- When people do not use disconfirming evidence that is undeniable
- Research suggests that individuals persevere in their beliefs even if these beliefs are
discredited
Confirmation bias explains why people accept information that is not (entirely) true.
False memory
Memory for an event that never actually occurred or happened differently than remembered.
Implanted memories
- Lost in the mall → parents started to tell their son he was lost in the mall when he was
younger. The son started to believe this and started to ‘remember’ details of this event.
- Balloon ride → parents photoshopped their son into a hot air balloon, and told him that he
went on an hot air balloon when he was younger. He started to believe this.
If people tell you something from your childhood, you might not remember it, but you may start to
remember it if you have a credible source.
The likelihood of creating a false memory depends on how plausible the information is.
Imagination inflation
Imagining an event leads to increase the likelihood that a false memory is created.
People are also more confident that this event really happened.
Misinformation
Memory is altered by misleading post-event information provided after the event.
- Information acquired between original learning and a subsequent memory test can disrupt
performance on the memory test.
- Example: participants see a video, and are later presented with a script of the video. This
script contains misleading information. By having this information available, people may
accept this information as true.
, Memory replacement theory (Loftus, 1979)
- When misleading information is encountered, original memory trace is permanently lost or
altered in favor of one with misleading information → New information has overwritten old
information.
Memory coexistence theory (Bekerian & Bowers, 1983)
- Because misleading information is more recent, it obscures the original memory trace, but the
original trace is still there.
- With warning, participants are able to disregard some of the misleading information.
- Information is not replaced, but it becomes less accessible (so Loftus’ theory is incorrect).
Alternative facts
How do people accept alternative facts?
How susceptible are people to this information?
What can you do about it?
Stanford History Education Group
Tested middle school, high school and college students on their ability to reason about information on
the internet.
Findings
Middle school students could not tell ads from articles.
Most high school students accepted photographs as presented without verifying them.
Most college students didn’t suspect potential bias in a tweet from an activist group.
Students didn’t display a critical attitude towards their sources.
Need for research on these topics
- Citizens should have a critical attitude towards information they encounter.
- News reports on social media and in printed media
- Critical thinking is one of the intended learning outcomes of a bachelor in psychology.
Studies on credibility
Credibility is a fluid concept → newspaper vs social media can have a different perceived credibility.
Study on source credibility
Associated with the trustworthiness of the source and the expertise associated with the source.
Arguments transmitted via news articles more persuasive and credible than arguments transmitted via
twitter (Wasike, 2017).
Study on message credibility
Message features, such as quotes and statistics, predict website credibility (Hong, 2005).
This also happens in scientific articles.
Experiment on source credibility
Existing news report presented as Facebook post or as news report.
Facebook posts should have lower source credibility than news reports, even if the content is
identical.
- Information is not easy to verify in Facebook posts
- Likes and comments may change view on the issue separate from the information
- Facebook post may serve political or ideological purpose
Confirmation bias
A tendency to be more responsive to evidence that confirms your beliefs rather than evidence that
might challenge your beliefs.
- We cannot achieve confirmation via hypothesis testing
→ you can confirm, but you can’t prove, because even if all available evidence supports a
hypothesis, there may still be further evidence that disproves it.
When disconfirming evidence is available:
- people fail to use it to adjust their beliefs
- people reinterpret the evidence to diminish the impact
When people encounter confirming evidence, they take it at face value.
People show better memory for confirming evidence than for disconfirming evidence.
People fail to consider alternative hypotheses that might explain the available data just as well.
Good elements of confirmation bias:
- It helps to maintain stability in the understanding of the world
- It often leads to overruling of evidence that should be overruled
Belief perseverance
- When people do not use disconfirming evidence that is undeniable
- Research suggests that individuals persevere in their beliefs even if these beliefs are
discredited
Confirmation bias explains why people accept information that is not (entirely) true.
False memory
Memory for an event that never actually occurred or happened differently than remembered.
Implanted memories
- Lost in the mall → parents started to tell their son he was lost in the mall when he was
younger. The son started to believe this and started to ‘remember’ details of this event.
- Balloon ride → parents photoshopped their son into a hot air balloon, and told him that he
went on an hot air balloon when he was younger. He started to believe this.
If people tell you something from your childhood, you might not remember it, but you may start to
remember it if you have a credible source.
The likelihood of creating a false memory depends on how plausible the information is.
Imagination inflation
Imagining an event leads to increase the likelihood that a false memory is created.
People are also more confident that this event really happened.
Misinformation
Memory is altered by misleading post-event information provided after the event.
- Information acquired between original learning and a subsequent memory test can disrupt
performance on the memory test.
- Example: participants see a video, and are later presented with a script of the video. This
script contains misleading information. By having this information available, people may
accept this information as true.
, Memory replacement theory (Loftus, 1979)
- When misleading information is encountered, original memory trace is permanently lost or
altered in favor of one with misleading information → New information has overwritten old
information.
Memory coexistence theory (Bekerian & Bowers, 1983)
- Because misleading information is more recent, it obscures the original memory trace, but the
original trace is still there.
- With warning, participants are able to disregard some of the misleading information.
- Information is not replaced, but it becomes less accessible (so Loftus’ theory is incorrect).
Alternative facts
How do people accept alternative facts?
How susceptible are people to this information?
What can you do about it?
Stanford History Education Group
Tested middle school, high school and college students on their ability to reason about information on
the internet.
Findings
Middle school students could not tell ads from articles.
Most high school students accepted photographs as presented without verifying them.
Most college students didn’t suspect potential bias in a tweet from an activist group.
Students didn’t display a critical attitude towards their sources.
Need for research on these topics
- Citizens should have a critical attitude towards information they encounter.
- News reports on social media and in printed media
- Critical thinking is one of the intended learning outcomes of a bachelor in psychology.
Studies on credibility
Credibility is a fluid concept → newspaper vs social media can have a different perceived credibility.
Study on source credibility
Associated with the trustworthiness of the source and the expertise associated with the source.
Arguments transmitted via news articles more persuasive and credible than arguments transmitted via
twitter (Wasike, 2017).
Study on message credibility
Message features, such as quotes and statistics, predict website credibility (Hong, 2005).
This also happens in scientific articles.
Experiment on source credibility
Existing news report presented as Facebook post or as news report.
Facebook posts should have lower source credibility than news reports, even if the content is
identical.
- Information is not easy to verify in Facebook posts
- Likes and comments may change view on the issue separate from the information
- Facebook post may serve political or ideological purpose
