Why Do People Fall for Fake Science News?

Photo by Hal Gatewood on Unsplash

Psychology Today
The spread of health-related misinformation and fake science news is not a trivial matter. When it comes to health, lives can be at stake. Indeed, in a previous article, I discussed three ways that pseudoscientific therapies could potentially be harmful.

But health-related misinformation and fake news related to a myriad of scientific topics persist and spread nonetheless. A simple Google search can reveal a disconnect between the scientific consensus and particular pockets of public opinion on topics ranging from vaccine safety to the treatment of mental health disorders and from evolution to climate change.

One might ask, what causes people to fall for false scientific claims? The answer to such a complex question is, of course, multifactorial—there many reasons at the individual, group, and societal levels of analysis. Fortunately, a recent review in the journal PNAS has helped to shed some light on this issue by perusing the evidence-based social science research literature. MORE