Sander van der Linden - The reasons we fall for fake news

Sander van der Linden, Professor of Social Psychology in Society at Cambridge, explains why people have been duped by misinformation.

About Sander van der Linden
"I am a Professor of Social Psychology and Director of the Social Decision-Making Lab at the University of Cambridge.

I study the influence process, so I study how people are persuaded by information, and especially misinformation, and how we can help people resist persuasion when they don’t want to be persuaded. As part of that I’ve written a book, The Truth Vaccine: An Antidote to Fake News, where we break down the influence process."

The illusion of truth

Why do people fall for fake news? There are a multitude of reasons. One is what we call the illusory truth effect, which comes from research showing that if you expose people to a bunch of statements —some true and some false— and you repeat them over time, people are more likely to think that repeated statements are true even when they are false.

Unfortunately, a lot of fake news is often repeated by influential actors time and time again, which really causes it to stick in people's minds and memories. This goes back to classic propaganda. Germany’s minister for propaganda, who's credited with the big lie rule, said that if you “tell a lie big enough and often enough, eventually people will believe it”.

Key Points

• When influential people broadcast and amplify fake news, it sticks in our minds.
• Our political worldview and desire to belong to a particular “tribe” may make us more receptive to misinformation.
• Thanks to the Internet, it’s never been easier to spread propaganda on a vast scale.