Illusory Truth Effect.

When someone see’s information repeated over and over, the brain fails to distinguish familiarity from truth. If a person keeps hearing or seeing the same incorrect health message, they might be more susceptible to believing it’s true. Human Beings react to emotional content and they also give preference to familiar content. When people are more familiar with information, they’re more likely to believe it. If families & friends urge that a cat crossing the road is a sign of something nasty bound to happen, and if the narratives are repeated all the time, someone is ought to believe every crossing cat is an omen.

In the Northern States of India, there is a very common practice of carrying onions inside shirt pockets to remain protected from the ‘Lue – sickness due to hot wind”. Putting an onion in the pocket isn’t dangerous, but not seeking medical treatment when someone is prone to ‘heat sickness’ can put their life at risk.

Similarly, upon seeing something on the social media over and over and over again, one might start thinking, ‘there must be some truth to this, it’s working for these people, I keep seeing it’. This is the idea behind propaganda, which often masquerades as ‘common sense’ or in the extreme ‘education’.

The art of manipulation – No one is immune to misinformation. People pedalling misinformation often exploit vulnerabilities, like youth, old age, or illness, to spread falsehoods. Persuasive tactics, like emotional appeals, appealing to distrust, and jargon, can be used to manipulate anyone. Determining what’s credible and accurate is difficult for the entire society.

Understanding psychological traps is one key in protecting oneself. These are:

• Emotional appeals use fear, anger, or hope to encourage the reader to bypass their critical thinking.

• Medical jargon can be used to lend false credibility to misinformation.

• Personal stories are memorable and persuasive, but they don’t provide a clear picture unless they’re supported by research.

• Vague statements that almost everyone can agree with create a false sense of trust.

• Catering to negativity bias makes us tend to pay more attention to things that are upsetting or scary.

• Algorithms demonstrate contents that’s more likely to get clicks, comments, and shares. These stories don’t just appear in your feed by accident.

The illusory truth effect occurs when people are exposed to false information so often that they come to believe it as true. Appealing to distrust can lead people to question established medical institutions and treatments. The continued influence effect means that people continue to believe misinformation even when they’ve seen it corrected or retracted. While, Echo chambers are online environments prioritising content that reinforces existing beliefs.

Impact of emotions on perception –

Emotional triggers like fear, anger, and even humor are incredibly powerful. They are far more likely to react to and share content that causes a strong emotional response. Social media algorithms reward engagement, so that one can see more emotional stories in their feeds and react to those. It’s a vicious cycle. During the outbreak of the recent pandemics, when medical experts wade in with facts and details, people just didn’t engage with that. On the other hand, the emotional stories got shared and reshared — and reshared some more.

The digital space is really about emotion, where someone responds to things emotionally and not rationally. For instance, alarmist posts with claims like, “Doctors don’t want you to know about this health secret”, prey on the fear of exclusion or being duped. Graphic images of disease captioned with “This is what happens when you don’t try X” prey on the fear of getting sick.

Education and analytical reasoning skills can help combat misinformation, while anxiety makes people more susceptible to believing it.

Falling for misinformation – Misinformation are fuelled by natural, primitive biases that are meant to protect. Brains use these biases to help in identifying potential threats and process important information quickly.

Identifying biases – Cognitive biases are unconscious shortcuts that can help in making quick decisions, like assuming the glowing red element on the gas burner will be hot if touched. These often-useful shortcuts can also lead to astray, like assuming a story with a news-like headline is true. There are many common types of these biases, including confirmation bias, motivated reasoning, and negativity bias.

• Confirmation bias: This tells the brain to seek out information that confirms ones existing beliefs. This is why people often seem to avoid perspectives that challenge their views. This can create echo chambers, on social media in particular, where users are exposed to more and more information that reinforces their existing beliefs, making them vulnerable to misinformation.

For example, if someone believe that vitamin C prevents colds, he / she might take it as proof every time you take vitamin C and don’t get sick. On the other hand, one might ignore instances where without consuming vitamin C, one doesn’t get sick, or when others after taking it, do get sick. In short, giving selective attention to information that supports your belief.

• Motivated reasoning: This is another thing the brain may do without you knowing. It involves processing information in a way that aligns with one’s desires and emotions. It’s similar to confirmation bias, but rather than confirming an existing belief it’s about being internally motivated to believe something.

For instance, if someone is in pain, they might be an inclination to try almost any treatment or ‘cure’, even if it’s not well-supported by evidence. They might also be more open to believing in solutions that seem too good to be true. And that desire for relief might even be strong enough to make them think the treatment is working.

• Negativity bias: This is the brain’s natural tendency to pay more attention to things that are negative, and can be a powerful fuel for false information. One’s own bias can also be leveraged to manipulate himself. Social media platforms are designed to maximise engagement and engineered to amplify sensational or emotionally charged content. Often, the message is negative, and accuracy is irrelevant.

Misinformation – refers to false or misleading information that often appears as news or cutting-edge insights. It is derived from social media, ads, blogs, word of mouth, or any number of other sources that haven’t been properly fact-checked. Misinformation can be intentional or accidental. And it can spread about anything, including politics, celebrities, and wellness. But health misinformation, in particular, can have serious impacts.

Why misinformation matters – For one thing, health misinformation can lead people to delay effective medical treatment or try ineffective or potentially harmful remedies. Health misinformation can also undermine public health initiatives and reduce trust in healthcare systems and public health professionals.

It can erode trust in doctors and important, evidence-based treatments. This tactic of appealing to distrust can lead people to believe persuasive influencers over established medical institutions and treatments. The most obvious example was during the COVID-19 pandemic when inaccurate claims about treatments and vaccine safety spread like wildfire.

Team Maverick