Argument: Why do People Fall for Fake News?

27 Read and Understand: Why Do People Fall for Fake News?

This chapter introduces students to the reading, “Why Do People Fall for Fake News?,” through a vocabulary preview activity, reading process activity, and summary and response activity. It may be helpful to print a copy of Why Do People Fall for Fake News? to make notes about vocabulary and to annotate as you preview and read the article.

Vocabulary Preview for “Why Do People Fall for Fake News?”

Purpose

The purpose of this activity is to build knowledge of vocabulary before reading a text in order to improve fluency and efficiency. You may also wish to practice using the new vocabulary in your writing. The preview is divided into three groups: (1) Academic Vocabulary, (2) Vocabulary with Other Common Meanings, and (3) Collocations and Informal Language.

Academic Vocabulary

Academic vocabulary are bold in the article “Why Do People Fall for Fake News?” and also listed below.  Prior to reading the article, familiarize yourself with the words using a dictionary. Several pieces of information are provided for each word and phrase:

  • The part of speech for the word according to how it is used in the article “Why Do People Fall for Fake News?”
    • Many words can take multiple parts of speech and have numerous definitions. Knowing a word’s part of speech in the sentence can help you to narrow down to the correct dictionary definition.
  • The sentence where the word is used in the article “Why Do People Fall for Fake News?”
    • The sentence provides context, which also helps to narrow down to the appropriate definition from the dictionary. The context is the situation in which the word is used.
  • The paragraph number where the word can be found in the reading
    • If you need additional context beyond the sentence, you can refer to the paragraph in the article for more information.

Using the information provided for each word, identify a relevant definition. You may also wish to note definitions and synonyms next to the words in the article to help you while you are reading. A synonym is a word which has a similar meaning to another word.

Vocabulary and Phrases

  1. appending (n.): Further evidence cited in support of this of argument comes from a 2010 study by the political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, who found that appending corrections to misleading claims in news articles can sometimes backfire: Not only did corrections fail to reduce misperceptions, but they also sometimes increased them. (Paragraph 7)
  2. assertions (n.): For example, people who think more analytically (those who are more likely to exercise their analytic skills and not just trust their “gut” response) are less superstitious, less likely to believe in conspiracy theories and less receptive to seemingly profound but actually empty assertions (like “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). (Paragraph 9)
  3. awry (adj.): Our argument is that cases in which our reasoning goes awry — which are surprising and attention-grabbing — seem to be exceptions rather than the rule. (Paragraph 13)
  4. biases (n.): Reason is not always, or even typically, held captive by our partisan biases. (Paragraph 13)
  5. circulate (v.): Our results strongly suggest that somehow cultivating or promoting our reasoning abilities should be part of the solution to the kinds of partisan misinformation that circulate on social media. (Paragraph 12)
  6. cognitive (adj.): A great deal of research in cognitive psychology has shown that a little bit of reasoning goes a long way toward forming accurate beliefs. (Paragraph 9)
  7. consensus (n.): The bad news is that there is not yet a consensus on the answer. (Paragraph 3)
  8. contending (adj.): The rationalization camp, which has gained considerable prominence in recent years, is built around a set of theories contending that when it comes to politically charged issues, people use their intellectual abilities to persuade themselves to believe what they want to be true rather than attempting to actually discover the truth. (Paragraph 5)
  9. demographic (adj.): We controlled for demographic facts such as level of education as well as political leaning. (Paragraph 11)
  10. demonstrably (adv.): In general, our political culture seems to be increasingly populated by people who espouse outlandish or demonstrably false claims that often align with their political ideology. (Paragraph 2)
  11. discern (v.): In follow-up studies yet to be published, we have shown that this finding was replicated using a pool of participants that was nationally representative with respect to age, gender, ethnicity and region of residence, and that it applies not just to the ability to discern true claims from false ones but also to the ability to identify excessively partisan coverage of true events. (Paragraph 11)
  12. dispute (n.): However, recent research suggests a silver lining to the dispute: Both camps appear to be capturing an aspect of the problem. (Paragraph 4)
  13. disseminating (n.): These questions have become more urgent in recent years, not least because of revelations about the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 United States presidential election by disseminating propaganda through social media platforms. (Paragraph 2)
  14. espouse (v.): In general, our political culture seems to be increasingly populated by people who espouse outlandish or demonstrably false claims that often align with their political ideology. (Paragraph 2)
  15. exacerbate (v.): Reasoning can exacerbate the problem, not provide the solution, when it comes to partisan disputes over facts. (Paragraph 7)
  16. gauged (v.):  We gauged whether our participants would engage in reasoning or “go with their gut” by having them complete something called the cognitive reflection test, a test widely used in psychology and behavioral economics. (Paragraph 10)
  17. ideologically (adv.): It seemed as if people who were ideologically inclined to believe a given falsehood worked so hard to come up with reasons that the correction was wrong that they came to believe the falsehood even more strongly. (Paragraph 7)
  18. implications (n.): This is not just an academic debate; it has real implications for public policy. (Paragraph 14)
  19. intuitively (adv.): It consists of questions with intuitively compelling but incorrect answers, which can be easily shown to be wrong with a modicum of reasoning. (Paragraph 10)
  20. misperceptions (n.): Further evidence cited in support of this of argument comes from a 2010 study by the political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, who found that appending corrections to misleading claims in news articles can sometimes backfire: Not only did corrections fail to reduce misperceptions, but they also sometimes increased them. (Paragraph 7)
  21. modicum (n.): It consists of questions with intuitively compelling but incorrect answers, which can be easily shown to be wrong with a modicum of reasoning. (Paragraph 10)
  22. outlandish (adj.): In general, our political culture seems to be increasingly populated by people who espouse outlandish or demonstrably false claims that often align with their political ideology. (Paragraph 2)
  23. prominence (n.): The rationalization camp, which has gained considerable prominence in recent years, is built around a set of theories contending that when it comes to politically charged issues, people use their intellectual abilities to persuade themselves to believe what they want to be true rather than attempting to actually discover the truth. (Paragraph 5)
  24. propaganda (n.): These questions have become more urgent in recent years, not least because of revelations about the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 United States presidential election by disseminating propaganda through social media platforms. (Paragraph 2)
  25. rationalization (n.): One group claims that our ability to reason is hijacked by our partisan convictions: that is, we’re prone to rationalization. (Paragraph 3)
  26. replicated (adj.): In follow-up studies yet to be published, we have shown that this finding was replicated using a pool of participants that was nationally representative with respect to age, gender, ethnicity and region of residence, and that it applies not just to the ability to discern true claims from false ones but also to the ability to identify excessively partisan coverage of true events. (Paragraph 11)
  27. revelations (n.): These questions have become more urgent in recent years, not least because of revelations about the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 United States presidential election by disseminating propaganda through social media platforms. (Paragraph 2)
  28. strategic (adj.): What makes people susceptible to fake news and other forms of strategic misinformation? (Paragraph 1)
  29. superstitious (adj.): For example, people who think more analytically (those who are more likely to exercise their analytic skills and not just trust their “gut” response) are less superstitious, less likely to believe in conspiracy theories and less receptive to seemingly profound but actually empty assertions (like “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). (Paragraph 9)
  30. urgent (adj.); These questions have become more urgent in recent years, not least because of revelations about the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 United States presidential election by disseminating propaganda through social media platforms. (Paragraph 2)

Vocabulary with Other Common Meanings

Words can have many different meanings in English. Some words that have common, everyday meanings also have specific meanings that are not used as often.

Consider the word factor as an example. In everyday use, factor refers to some element that influences an outcome, as in the following sentence: Students’ time management skills are factors in their academic success. In a mathematics class, however, factor has a less common meaning that relates to multiplication.

The words in this section have less common and often more abstract meanings in the article compared to their meanings in everyday situations.

As with the Academic Vocabulary list above, the  vocabulary in this section includes the part of speech, the sentence from the article, and the paragraph number where the word can be found in the article. Using the information provided for each word, identify a relevant definition that fits with the context of how the word is used in the sentence. You may also wish to print a copy of the article and note definitions and synonyms next to the words in the article to help you while you are reading. A synonym is a word which has a similar meaning to another word.

  1. account (n.): But this “rationalization” account, though compelling in some contexts, does not strike us as the most natural or most common explanation of the human weakness for misinformation.(Paragraph 8)
  2. camps (n.): Much of the debate among researchers falls into two opposing camps. (Paragraph 3)
  3. capturing (v.): However, recent research suggests a silver lining to the dispute: Both camps appear to be capturing an aspect of the problem. (Paragraph 4)
  4. combat (v.): Once we understand how much of the problem is a result of rationalization and how much a result of laziness, and as we learn more about which factor plays a role in what types of situations, we’ll be better able to design policy solutions to help combat the problem. (Paragraph 4)
  5. cultivating (n.): Our results strongly suggest that somehow cultivating or promoting our reasoning abilities should be part of the solution to the kinds of partisan misinformation that circulate on social media. (Paragraph 12)
  6. empty (adj.): For example, people who think more analytically (those who are more likely to exercise their analytic skills and not just trust their “gut” response) are less superstitious, less likely to believe in conspiracy theories and less receptive to seemingly profound but actually empty assertions (like “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). (Paragraph 9)
  7. exercise (v.): The other group — to which the two of us belong — claims that the problem is that we often fail to exercise our critical faculties: that is, we’re mentally lazy. (Paragraph 3)
  8. inclined (adj.): It seemed as if people who were ideologically inclined to believe a given falsehood worked so hard to come up with reasons that the correction was wrong that they came to believe the falsehood even more strongly. (Paragraph 7)
  9. pool (n.): In follow-up studies yet to be published, we have shown that this finding was replicated using a pool of participants that was nationally representative with respect to age, gender, ethnicity and region of residence, and that it applies not just to the ability to discern true claims from false ones but also to the ability to identify excessively partisan coverage of true events. (Paragraph 11)
  10. position (n.): Some of the most striking evidence used to support this position comes from an influential 2012 study in which the law professor Dan Kahan and his colleagues found that the degree of political polarization on the issue of climate change was greater among people who scored higher on measures of science literary and numerical ability than it was among those who scored lower on these tests. (Paragraph 6)
  11. strike (v.): But this “rationalization” account, though compelling in some contexts, does not strike us as the most natural or most common explanation of the human weakness for misinformation. (Paragraph 8)

Collocations and Informal Language

This section of vocabulary includes collocations and informal language. A collocation is the frequent use of two more words together, such as save time, which is a common phrase in English. Informal language may include conversational language that is less likely to be used in academic writing, as well as idioms. An idiom is an expression that cannot be defined based on the meanings of the separate words; instead, the combination of words has a different meaning altogether. For example, the idiom to open a can of worms has nothing to do with cans or worms; it means to create an especially challenging problem.

The collocations and informal language in this section include the sentence from the article and the paragraph number where the words can be found in the article. Prior to reading the article, familiarize yourself with the concepts using a dictionary or by searching online if you cannot find one in the dictionary. Identify a relevant definition for each. You may also wish to note definitions and synonyms next to the words in the article to help you while you are reading.  A synonym is a word which has a similar meaning to another word.

  1. align with: In general, our political culture seems to be increasingly populated by people who espouse outlandish or demonstrably false claims that often align with their political ideology. (Paragraph 2)
  2. backfire (v.): Further evidence cited in support of this of argument comes from a 2010 study by the political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, who found that appending corrections to misleading claims in news articles can sometimes backfire: Not only did corrections fail to reduce misperceptions, but they also sometimes increased them. (Paragraph 7)
  3. conspiracy theories: For example, people who think more analytically (those who are more likely to exercise their analytic skills and not just trust their “gut” response) are less superstitious, less likely to believe in conspiracy theories and less receptive to seemingly profound but actually empty assertions (like “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). (Paragraph 9)
  4. critical faculties: The other group — to which the two of us belong — claims that the problem is that we often fail to exercise our critical faculties: that is, we’re mentally lazy. (Paragraph 3)
  5. gut response: For example, people who think more analytically (those who are more likely to exercise their analytic skills and not just trust their “gut” response) are less superstitious, less likely to believe in conspiracy theories and less receptive to seemingly profound but actually empty assertions (like “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). (Paragraph 9)
  6. held captive: Reason is not always, or even typically, held captive by our partisan biases. (Paragraph 13)
  7. partisan convictions: One group claims that our ability to reason is hijacked by our partisan convictions: that is, we’re prone to rationalization. (Paragraph 3)
  8. partisan slant: Professor Kahan has found similar results in, for example, studies about gun control in which he experimentally manipulated the partisan slant of information that participants were asked to assess. (Paragraph 6)
  9. political ideology: In general, our political culture seems to be increasingly populated by people who espouse outlandish or demonstrably false claims that often align with their political ideology. (Paragraph 2)
  10. political passions: According to this view, political passions essentially make people unreasonable, even — indeed, especially — if they tend to be good at reasoning in other contexts. (Paragraph 5)
  11. political persuasions: To test this possibility, we recently ran a set of studies in which participants of various political persuasions indicated whether they believed a series of news stories. (Paragraph 10)
  12. political polarization: Some of the most striking evidence used to support this position comes from an influential 2012 study in which the law professor Dan Kahan and his colleagues found that the degree of political polarization on the issue of climate change was greater among people who scored higher on measures of science literary and numerical ability than it was among those who scored lower on these tests. (Paragraph 6)
  13. politically charged: Our research suggests that the solution to politically charged misinformation should involve devoting resources to the spread of accurate information and to training or encouraging people to think more critically. (Paragraph 14)
  14. silver lining: However, recent research suggests a silver lining to the dispute: Both camps appear to be capturing an aspect of the problem. (Paragraph 4)
  15. susceptible to: What makes people susceptible to fake news and other forms of strategic misinformation? (Paragraph 1)

Reading Process Activity for “Why Do People Fall for Fake News?”

Purpose

The purpose of this activity is to activate your background knowledge and build your interest before reading an article so that you have a more engaging and efficient reading experience; to actively read the article; and to reflect on your reading process and understanding of the text.

Preview the Article

Print a copy of the article “Why Do People Fall for Fake News?” by Gordon Pennycook and David Rand.

Then, follow the steps below to preview the article.  As you complete this preview activity, do not read the entire article.  You will read the entire article later — after you have previewed it.

  1. Read the title, “Why Do People Fall for Fake News?” When you see the phrase “fake news,” what does it make you think of? What have you heard about “fake news?”  How would you define “fake news?”
  2. Using your background knowledge and experience, answer the question that the title asks: Why do you think people fall for fake news? Use your brain – not other sources. Make some predictions about why this happens.  There is no single right answer.
  3. Read the subtitle of the article: “Are they blinded by their political passions? Or are they just intellectually lazy?”  What do these two questions mean?  Look up any unfamiliar vocabulary.  How would you answer these two questions in the subtitle?  Predict what the authors have to say about people falling for fake news based on these two questions in the subtitle.
  4. Now, preview the text of the article. Reading the introduction, the first sentences of paragraphs, and the conclusion can often help to activate and assess your background knowledge and to predict what the reading is about.  Read all of paragraphs 1-3, the first sentence only in paragraphs 4-13, and paragraph 14 of the article.  Based on this preview, what do you predict is the main argument of the authors, Gordon Pennycook and David Rand?  Paraphrase and write in complete sentences.
  5. After previewing the article, what questions do you have that you hope the article will answer?  List at least three questions below.

Actively Read and Annotate the Article

You are finished previewing “Why Do People Fall for Fake News?”  Now, actively read the article.  As you read the article, do the following:

    • Pause as you read the article to consider whether or not your predictions were correct.
    • Paraphrase main points of the article briefly in the margins.
    • Mark unfamiliar vocabulary.

Why Do People Fall for Fake News?

Are they blinded by their political passions? Or are they just intellectually lazy?

By Gordon Pennycook and David Rand

January 19, 2019

As you read, take notes related to the questions you wrote and the predictions you made when you previewed the article. Record any new questions you have and your reactions to the ideas in the article.

1 What makes people susceptible to fake news and other forms of strategic misinformation? And what, if anything, can be done about it?

2 These questions have become more urgent in recent years, not least because of revelations about the Russian campaign to influence the 2016 United States presidential election by disseminating propaganda through social media platforms. In general, our political culture seems to be increasingly populated by people who espouse outlandish or demonstrably false claims that often align with their political ideology.

3 The good news is that psychologists and other social scientists are working hard to understand what prevents people from seeing through propaganda. The bad news is that there is not yet a consensus on the answer. Much of the debate among researchers falls into two opposing camps. One group claims that our ability to reason is hijacked by our partisan convictions: that is, we’re prone to rationalization. The other group — to which the two of us belong — claims that the problem is that we often fail to exercise our critical faculties: that is, we’re mentally lazy.

4 However, recent research suggests a silver lining to the dispute: Both camps appear to be capturing an aspect of the problem. Once we understand how much of the problem is a result of rationalization and how much a result of laziness, and as we learn more about which factor plays a role in what types of situations, we’ll be better able to design policy solutions to help combat the problem.

5 The rationalization camp, which has gained considerable prominence in recent years, is built around a set of theories contending that when it comes to politically charged issues, people use their intellectual abilities to persuade themselves to believe what they want to be true rather than attempting to actually discover the truth. According to this view, political passions essentially make people unreasonable, even — indeed, especially — if they tend to be good at reasoning in other contexts. (Roughly: The smarter you are, the better you are at rationalizing.)

6 Some of the most striking evidence used to support this position comes from an influential 2012 study in which the law professor Dan Kahan and his colleagues found that the degree of political polarization on the issue of climate change was greater among people who scored higher on measures of science literary and numerical ability than it was among those who scored lower on these tests. Apparently, more “analytical” Democrats were better able to convince themselves that climate change was a problem, while more “analytical” Republicans were better able to convince themselves that climate change was not a problem. Professor Kahan has found similar results in, for example, studies about gun control in which he experimentally manipulated the partisan slant of information that participants were asked to assess.

7 The implications here are profound: Reasoning can exacerbate the problem, not provide the solution, when it comes to partisan disputes over facts. Further evidence cited in support of this of argument comes from a 2010 study by the political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler, who found that appending corrections to misleading claims in news articles can sometimes backfire: Not only did corrections fail to reduce misperceptions, but they also sometimes increased them. It seemed as if people who were ideologically inclined to believe a given falsehood worked so hard to come up with reasons that the correction was wrong that they came to believe the falsehood even more strongly.

8 But this “rationalization” account, though compelling in some contexts, does not strike us as the most natural or most common explanation of the human weakness for misinformation. We believe that people often just don’t think critically enough about the information they encounter.

9 A great deal of research in cognitive psychology has shown that a little bit of reasoning goes a long way toward forming accurate beliefs. For example, people who think more analytically (those who are more likely to exercise their analytic skills and not just trust their “gut” response) are less superstitious, less likely to believe in conspiracy theories and less receptive to seemingly profound but actually empty assertions (like “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). This body of evidence suggests that the main factor explaining the acceptance of fake news could be cognitive laziness, especially in the context of social media, where news items are often skimmed or merely glanced at.

10 To test this possibility, we recently ran a set of studies in which participants of various political persuasions indicated whether they believed a series of news stories. We showed them real headlines taken from social media, some of which were true and some of which were false. We gauged whether our participants would engage in reasoning or “go with their gut” by having them complete something called the cognitive reflection test, a test widely used in psychology and behavioral economics. It consists of questions with intuitively compelling but incorrect answers, which can be easily shown to be wrong with a modicum of reasoning. (For example: “If you’re running a race and you pass the person in second place, what place are you in?” If you’re not thinking you might say “first place,” when of course the answer is second place.)

11 We found that people who engaged in more reflective reasoning were better at telling true from false, regardless of whether the headlines aligned with their political views. (We controlled for demographic facts such as level of education as well as political leaning.) In follow-up studies yet to be published, we have shown that this finding was replicated using a pool of participants that was nationally representative with respect to age, gender, ethnicity and region of residence, and that it applies not just to the ability to discern true claims from false ones but also to the ability to identify excessively partisan coverage of true events.

12 Our results strongly suggest that somehow cultivating or promoting our reasoning abilities should be part of the solution to the kinds of partisan misinformation that circulate on social media. And other new research provides evidence that even in highly political contexts, people are not as irrational as the rationalization camp contends. Recent studies have shown, for instance, that correcting partisan misperceptions does not backfire most of the time — contrary to the results of Professors Nyhan and Reifler described above — but instead leads to more accurate beliefs.

13 We are not arguing that findings such as Professor Kahan’s that support the rationalization theory are unreliable. Our argument is that cases in which our reasoning goes awry — which are surprising and attention-grabbing — seem to be exceptions rather than the rule. Reason is not always, or even typically, held captive by our partisan biases. In many and perhaps most cases, it seems, reason does promote the formation of accurate beliefs.

14 This is not just an academic debate; it has real implications for public policy. Our research suggests that the solution to politically charged misinformation should involve devoting resources to the spread of accurate information and to training or encouraging people to think more critically. You aren’t doomed to be unreasonable, even in highly politicized times. Just remember that this is also true of people you disagree with.

Gordon Pennycook is an assistant professor at the Hill & Levene Schools of Business at the University of Regina, in Saskatchewan. David Rand is an associate professor at the Sloan School of Management and the department of brain and cognitive sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

This article was originally published in The New York Times.

Reflect after Reading the Article

Record your responses to the questions below in complete sentences.

  1. Now that you have read the article, what is the authors’ main point?  Write it in your own words.
  2. Why do you think Pennycook and Rand wrote the article?  (What was the authors’ purpose?)
  3. How did your understanding of fake news change after previewing and then reading the article?
  4. What questions do you still have after reading the article?  What else do you want to know about the article or topic of the reading?
  5. How did brainstorming about your background knowledge of fake news and previewing the article help with your understanding of the text?

Reading & Response

Instructions:

  1. Read the article, “Why Do People Fall for Fake News” by Gordon Pennycook and David Rand. As you read, annotate the article.  Take notes about the main idea, your reactions, and questions that you may have.
  2. After reading, complete a one-paragraph summary of the article. The summary should include the author’s name, article title, and the overall main idea.  Additionally, it is helpful to focus on the who, what, where, why, when, and how of the article to develop your summary.  The ideas should be paraphrased and written in your own words.
  3. Write a developed, one-paragraph response to the article. Develop a clear statement of your position or point of view on the ideas expressed in the article. Be sure clearly explain and support your response.  You may also consider using a particular quote from the article to use in your response.  If using a quote, work to incorporate the quote smoothly into the response.  Be sure to cite the quote using in-text citations.

As an example:

I agree with the final assessment that Pennycook and Rand make at the end of their essay.  Specifically, “This body of evidence suggests that the main factor explaining the acceptance of fake news could be cognitive laziness, especially in the context of social media, where news items are of skimmed or merely glanced at.”

From there, expand on your ideas to explain and support why you agree with this statement.

Suggestions for Writing

  1. Plan your summary and response before writing them. Review the notes that you have made regarding the article. Then, use a writing process that you are comfortable with that can include brainstorming, free writing, listing, outlining, mapping, pre-thinking, pre-writing, etc.
  2. Aim to use conventional grammar and sentence structure and to make the tone of your essay professional, not casual.
  3. Edit your work before submitting it.

License

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Supporting English Language Learners in First-Year College Composition Copyright © by Breana Bayraktar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

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