Educated but easily fooled? Who falls for misinformation and why

Nearly five billion people worldwide receive their news from social media, and the impact of misinformation—especially on elections—is of increasing concern. Despite extensive research, it remains largely unclear who is particularly vulnerable to misinformation and why.

What the researchers say: “There is a lot of research on misinformation right now, but with the volume of work, it has become increasingly difficult to see the connections between different factors,” explains the lead author of a new study. He and his colleagues conducted a meta-analysis using data from the US, examining how factors such as education, age, gender, political identity, analytical thinking, partisan bias, motivated reflection, and familiarity with news have an impact on people’s online misinformation veracity judgments.

The researchers found no significant impact of education on people’s ability to distinguish between true and false information. This contradicts the widespread belief that more educated individuals are likely to be less susceptible to misinformation, especially as higher education teaches us critical thinking. The study also challenges assumptions about age and misinformation. While older adults are often portrayed as more vulnerable to fake news, the analysis found that they were actually better than younger adults at distinguishing between true and false headlines. Older adults were also more skeptical and tended to label headlines as false more often.

Paradoxically, however, previous research has consistently shown that older adults engage with and share more misinformation online.  

Political identity also played a key role. The meta-analysis confirmed prior studies showing that individuals who identify as Republicans are more likely to fall for misinformation than those who identify as Democrats.

Republicans were less accurate at assessing the veracity of news and tended to label more headlines as true, whereas Democrats were more skeptical. Individuals with higher analytical thinking skills—who are better at logically evaluating information, identifying patterns, and systematically solving problems—performed better overall and were more suspicious (tending to classify news as false).

People were more likely to believe that news that aligned with their political identity was true and to disregard news that was not aligned with their political identity—a phenomenon known as partisan bias. However, a counterintuitive finding was that individuals with higher analytical thinking were actually more susceptible to partisan bias. This tendency is known as motivated reflection, which is a cognitive process where individuals’ analytical reasoning works against them to protect their pre-existing beliefs, values, or partisan affiliations.

The strongest effect in the meta-analysis was the influence of familiarity. When participants reported having already seen a news headline, they were more likely to believe it was true. This finding underscores the danger of repeated exposure to misinformation, particularly on social media.

To ensure the highest reliability, the researchers conducted an individual participant data meta-analysis—considered the gold standard in the field.

“Unlike traditional meta-analyses that look only at effect sizes from previous studies, this approach allows us to work with and combine individual data from each study, making the analysis much more powerful,” the researchers explain.

The researchers evaluated raw data from 31 experiments conducted in the US from 2006 to 2023. They analyzed 256,337 decisions made by 11,561 participants aged between 18 and 88 years to investigate how four demographic factors (age, gender, education, and political identity) and four psychological factors (analytical thinking, partisan bias, motivated reflection, and familiarity) impacted people’s assessment of the accuracy of online information. Participants judged the veracity of news headlines covering topics such as politics and health.

A special focus of the investigation was the distinction between the ability to recognize true and false news (discrimination ability) and response bias, which describes whether participants tend to classify news as generally true or false.  

The results come at a critical time. “The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024 identifies misinformation as one of the greatest risks to the world in the next two years. With the rise of right-wing populism, the study's results are highly relevant and could influence debates on how to best combat misinformation in different demographic groups”, the lead author said.

“The results highlight the urgent need to integrate media literacy and critical thinking skills into school curricula from an early age. Younger adults, despite being considered 'digital natives,' were less able to distinguish between true and false news,” he added.

More effective and age-appropriate media literacy programs tailored to this group are therefore crucial. Furthermore, given the strong effects of familiarity and political bias, interventions for helping people identify and share less misinformation must consider how information is presented and shared, especially on social media, where these effects are amplified. For example, effective interventions might emphasize commonalities and promote respectful dialogue across political boundaries.

My take: I am not sure that this last recommendation is possible given our design specs. As the researchers rightly point out, though not in so many words, the strongest driver behind the formulation and retention of all our assumptions and beliefs is the need to belong.

We believe something to be true not because of its veracity, but because of its perceived utility in strengthening the perception of belonging to a group who will support us, because we share their beliefs. Right or wrong, true or false are only valid concepts within a social context.