Psychologists: Dark Personality Traits Make People Susceptible To Fake News

[Grim Reaper 6]

Fake news has been the focus of recent research at the Human-Computer-Media Institute at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg in Bavaria, Germany. “Some people believe Fake News even when the scientific facts clearly contradict them,” says psychologist Jan Philipp Rudloff. “We wanted to know why this is the case and investigate the role played by our ideas about the nature of knowledge and facts.” The study showed that the less the participants believed in the existence of facts, the more difficult it was for them to distinguish true statements from false ones. In addition, there was a second finding: the stronger the “dark factor of personality” of the participants was, i.e. the more pronounced their self-interest at the expense of others, the more they doubted that there was a difference between scientific findings and mere opinions.

You could call their beliefs post-factual; they only believe what feels true to them,” Jan Philipp Rudloff emphasizes. Accordingly, they find it difficult to distinguish true statements from false ones, so they particularly often believe fake news to be true. “People with dark personality traits bend reality to their own liking. For example: I don’t wear a mask because the coronavirus was just invented by the media anyways,” Rudloff explains. “Bending the facts based on selfish motives works especially well when people are convinced that there are no independent scientific facts anyways.”  https://scitechdaily.com/psychologists-dark-personality-traits-make-people-susceptible-to-fake-news

 

[+and-then]

They don't even recognize the boundless irony in that piece.  The same ones who use it to indict supporters of the man who coined the phrase 'FAKE NEWS" haven't apologized or even acknowledged the dozens of slanders, fabrications and straight up lies their "trusted news source" fed them for 4 years.  I fully expect them to carry the water for the Musk attackers.  

SMH...

[+and-then]

I'm sure he's "blue check certified"  The hilarity continues when you factor in folks refusing to accept your sources because some site on the net says they're untrustworthy, while leaving out the fact that they call ANY SITE that doesn't toe their line -"untrustworthy".  It's such a ridiculous game.

[Grim Reaper 6]

34 minutes ago, and-then said:

They don't even recognize the boundless irony in that piece.  The same ones who use it to indict supporters of the man who coined the phrase 'FAKE NEWS" haven't apologized or even acknowledged the dozens of slanders, fabrications and straight up lies their "trusted news source" fed them for 4 years.  I fully expect them to carry the water for the Musk attackers.  

SMH...

I don’t think this academic research was based upon American politics, but it appears your convinced it was. When I started this thread my thoughts were focused on what causes people to accept misinformation and disinformation alone. It was not my intention for this to strike a nerve in anyone, I only meant it as a topic of discussion nothing else, because this applies to so many more subjects than politics. 

Peer Reviewed Journal: When truthiness trumps truth: Epistemic beliefs predict the accurate discernment of fake news:https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2023-08716-001?doi=1 

 

[Ell]

Certain psychologies, such as psychopaths, sociopaths and narcissists, cannot distinguish truth from untruth: it is all a 'story' that can be changed at will in their perception. Those indeed are the dark psychologies.

 

I do wonder whether this researcher is himself one of those dark psychologies: he does not appear to realize that the corona hysteria was a scam.

[XenoFish]

Fake news? I don't trust any news.

[the13bats]

Manwon,

I believe i get where the writer was going as in a different way i have thought the same and in my case it had nothing to do with my go to sections of this forum or politics but rather it started with me on an unrelated hobby forum i met a very angry bitter fellow and for reasons i cant explain i tried to befriend him i failed, i feel badly for him his family wife etc.

It did engage my thinking and as i had other stuff injected like on here folks who blindly believe the unproven is real and exists or trump is a god i did think more about it and yes i have come to the conclusion mindset and belief is very much based on things like ego as in narsisists or megalomaniacs sociopaths etc.

for example lets say "fred" very much believes he can fly like superman yes this is an extreme case, now if called out to prove it fred can not prove it, yet fred still due to his ego believes he can fly and perhaps fred is also ignorant enough to believe covid was a fraud and masks are a scam and bigfoot is real.

I assure you fred belives the latter just as adamantly as he believes he can fly it doesnt matter what science, physics and rational proof shows freds ego is firm fred is right the world is wrong. Its not all that different to a person who believes they saw bigfoot, was abducted by aliens or those who think ghost are real or they can conjure the dead its all about the persons mind what they believe it starts and stops there.

Why do you think sceptics are so deeply hated for asking for proof, when being put into a cornor its fight or flee and believers cant flee We have to understand that these people think we are the uninformed the ones who are clueless and missing out. While we can know why people believe and think as they do in most cases we dont need to try to change them they are happy and harmless.

Only in extreem cases like with covid or jan 6th does ego driven delusions cause any death or destruction most times its just some fellow wanting attention who claims he saw something paranormal.