Researchers at the MPI for Human Development have analysed who is particularly susceptible to online misinformation and why. Their meta-analysis reveals surprising patterns in how demographic and psychological factors – including age, education, political identity, analytical thinking and motivated reflection – influence people’s ability to assess the accuracy of information. For example, people with a higher level of education are just as susceptible to misinformation as people with a lower level of education. The work published in the scientific journal PNAS provides important insights for the development of theories and interventions.
Berlin/Germany, February 5, 2025 Almost five billion people worldwide get their news from social media. The impact of misinformation – especially on elections – is increasingly worrying. Despite extensive research, it is largely unclear who is particularly susceptible to misinformation and why. ‘There is currently a flood of research on misinformation, but with the amount of work out there, it is becoming increasingly difficult to recognise the links between different factors,’ explains lead author Mubashir Sultan. The doctoral student in the Adaptive Rationality research area investigates misinformation and decision-making behaviour on the internet. Together with his colleagues, he conducted a meta-analysis with data from the USA to investigate how factors such as education, age, gender, political identity, analytical thinking, partisan bias, motivated reflection and familiarity with news influence the assessment of online misinformation.
The researchers found that the level of education had no significant influence on the ability to distinguish between true and false information. This contradicts the widespread assumption that higher educated people are less susceptible to misinformation, especially because higher education promotes critical thinking. The study also questions assumptions about age and misinformation. While older adults are often portrayed as more susceptible to fake news, the analysis showed that they were actually better than younger adults at distinguishing true from false headlines. Older adults were also more sceptical and more likely to classify headlines as false. Paradoxically, however, previous research has repeatedly shown that older adults are more likely to engage with and share misinformation online.
Political identity also played a central role. The meta-analysis confirmed previous studies showing that Republicans are more likely to be fooled by misinformation than Democrats. Republicans were less accurate in assessing the credibility of news and tended to rate more headlines as true, while Democrats were more sceptical. People with higher analytical thinking skills – that is, who are better at logically evaluating information, recognising patterns and systematically solving problems – performed better overall and were more sceptical (they tended to classify news as false). People were more likely to believe news that matched their political identity and reject news that did not match their political identity – a phenomenon known as partisan bias. However, a counterintuitive finding was that individuals with higher analytical thinking were more affected by partisan bias. This tendency is known as motivated reflection, a cognitive process in which analytical thinking works against one’s judgement to protect existing beliefs, values or political affiliations. The strongest effect in the meta-analysis was the influence of familiarity. When participants stated that they had seen a news headline before, they were more likely to believe it was true. This result emphasises the risk of repeated exposure to misinformation, especially on social media.
To ensure the highest reliability, the researchers conducted a meta-analysis with individual participant data – the gold standard in this field. ‘Unlike traditional meta-analyses, which only look at effect sizes from previous studies, this approach allows us to work with individual data from each study, which makes the analysis much more meaningful,’ explains Mubashir Sultan. The researchers analysed raw data from 31 experiments conducted in the USA between 2006 and 2023. They analysed 256,337 decisions made by 11,561 participants aged 18 to 88 to investigate how four demographic factors (age, gender, education and political identity) and four psychological factors (analytical thinking, bias, motivated reflection and familiarity) influence the assessment of the accuracy of online information. Participants rated the credibility of news headlines on topics such as politics and Health. A particular focus was on the distinction between the ability to recognise true and false news (discrimination ability) and response bias, which describes whether participants generally classify news as true or false.
The findings come at a critical time. ‘The World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2024 identifies misinformation as one of the biggest risks facing the world in the next two years. Given the rise of right-wing populism, the study’s findings are highly relevant and could influence debates on how best to tackle misinformation in different demographic groups,’ says co-author Ralf Kurvers, Senior Research Scientist at the Adaptive Rationality Research Unit of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development.
‘The results emphasise the urgent need to integrate media literacy and critical thinking into school curricula at an early age. Younger adults, who are considered ‘digital natives’, were less able to distinguish between true and false news,’ continues Ralf Kurvers. Therefore, more effective and age-appropriate media literacy programmes for this group are crucial. In addition, interventions to help people identify and minimise the spread of misinformation need to take into account the powerful effects of familiarity and political bias – especially on social media, where these effects are more prevalent. Effective interventions could, for example, emphasise common ground and promote respectful dialogue across political boundaries.
This study is part of a larger initiative of the Adaptive Rationality research area that investigates the dynamics of digital environments. The researchers aim to gain a comprehensive understanding of how these digital spaces influence policy-relevant behaviour and attitudes, while also developing a strategic roadmap to address the associated challenges. A research team led by the Max Planck Institute for Human Development recently presented a toolbox to help individuals combat misinformation more effectively.
In brief:
– Meta-analysis examines 31 US studies to determine how key demographic and psychological factors influence susceptibility to misinformation.
– Older adults, Democrats, and those with higher analytical thinking skills are better able to distinguish true from false news.
– Familiarity and partisan bias increase the tendency to categorise news as true.
– People with higher analytical thinking skills show a stronger partisan bias (motivated reflection).
– The results provide important insights for theorising and the development of intervention strategies.
Translated with Deep_L_com
Original publication:
Sultan, M., Tump, A. N., Ehmann, N., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Hertwig, R., Gollwitzer, A., & Kurvers, R. H. J. M. (2024). Susceptibility to online misinformation: A systematic meta-analysis of demographic and psychological factors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(47), Article e2409329121. (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2409329121)
Kozyreva, A., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Herzog, S. M., Ecker, U. K. H., Lewandowsky, S., Hertwig, R., Ali, A., Bak-Coleman, J., Barzilai, S., Basol, M., Berinsky, A. J., Betsch, C., Cook, J., Fazio, L. K., Geers, M., Guess, A. M., Huang, H., Larreguy, H., Maertens, R., Panizza, F., Pennycook, G., Rand, D. G., Rathje, S., Reifler, J., Schmid, P., Smith, M., Swire-Thompson, B., Szewach, P., van der Linden, S., & Wineburg, S. (2024). Toolbox of individual-level interventions against online misinformation. Nature Human Behaviour, 8, 1044–1052. (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01881-0)
Further Information:
(https://www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/pressemeldungen/online-fehlinformationen)
Presseinformationen auf der MPIB-Webseite
(https://interventionstoolbox.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/)
Zur im Text beschriebenen Toolbox
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Markus Winkler Pixabay