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On social networks, misinformation is everywhere. And while checking information is within everyone’s reach, a minority of Internet users decide to share false content, sometimes deliberately. A British study wanted to know what distinguished these people and their motivations.
Sharing false information about politics on social media may be linked to a personality disorder called schizotypy, according to a study led by Tom Buchanan of the University of Westminster in the United Kingdom. published in the journal Plos One.
Positive schizotypy is “a cluster of traits including paranoia, suspiciousness, and disturbed thought patterns“, according to the authors of this study. This personality disorder”is associated with decision-making based more on intuition – and sometimes bias – than on thoughtful, deliberate thinking“. The researchers nevertheless emphasize that this aspect testifies to a “motivation to raise awareness” on a subject.
The research involved 1,916 Americans, divided into four studies. The first looked at the relationship between individual differences and users’ tendency to share such false information. The second study looked at the motivations that motivate people to share such false information. In the third study, participants, whose individual differences and motivations were assessed, were presented with a series of political news headlines, both true and false. They were asked to indicate whether they would consider sharing each of them and whether they considered them to be true. In the fourth study, the researchers assessed the actual tweets posted by the participants. The goal was to determine whether the factors identified in Studies 1, 2, and 3 were associated with the actual sharing of false information on Twitter.
Manipulate and sow doubt
The researchers’ findings are clear: a link has been established between positive schizotypy and the sharing of false information, whether the participants do so knowingly or not.
“While a range of motivations for sharing political information online were associated with sharing false information, two appeared particularly important: the desire to share political information to attack or manipulate others, and the desire to share political information to raise awareness. Although individuals reported different motivations for sharing specific false stories, both factors appear to influence both deliberate and accidental sharing of false stories.“, explains the report.
According to their explanations, this positive schizotypy is more associated with decision-making based on intuition but also on prejudices, rather than on “reflective thinking”. While the researchers do not dispute the presumed complexity of the mechanism, they nevertheless observe that participants frequently mentioned “awareness” as the main motivation for sharing political information.
Some still want to sow chaos, knowing full well the inaccuracy of the information shared: “Another potentially important trait is the ‘need for chaos’. This trait reflects the desire of some individuals to disrupt society in order to improve their own (currently marginalised) status. It has been shown to influence the motivation to share hostile political information and reports of deliberately sharing false information.“, the researchers emphasize.
For the latter, the question is to better understand the reasons which push certain people to share this kind of false information.Understanding the role of motivation in more detail, as well as the effects of positive schizotypy, will likely be productive topics for future research on disinformation.“, they conclude.