A new study suggests that the tendency to share false political information on social media may be connected to positive schizotypal traits, which include paranoia, suspicion, and disrupted thinking patterns.
According to Phys.org, Professor Tom Buchanan from the University of Westminster in the UK led the study.
Why People Share False Political Information
The study noted that disseminating false political information on social media platforms can erode trust in genuine news sources and even foster social unrest. It found that a small segment of social media users continue sharing false information, knowingly or unknowingly.
Buchanan and his team sought to understand the differences between those who share false information and those who do not and the reasons behind their actions. To achieve this, they examined two categories of factors: individual user differences and user motivations.
The researchers carried out four separate studies involving 1,916 US residents. In the first study, a cross-sectional online survey was used to investigate the connection between individual differences and users' self-reported likelihood of propagating false information.
The second study expanded on this by examining respondents' motivations for sharing false information, including activism, manipulation, and entertainment.
On the other hand, the third study involved participants who had previously been surveyed about their individual differences and motivations. These participants were shown a series of true and false political headlines and asked to indicate whether they would consider sharing each headline and whether they believed each was truthful.
The fourth study involved the research team analyzing real tweets posted by participants to understand if the factors identified in the first three studies have any connection with the actual sharing of false information on Twitter, now known as X.
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Link Between Positive Schizotopy and Sharing False Information
In all four studies, researchers identified a link between positive schizotypy and the sharing of false information, whether intentional or accidental. However, they observed that the effect sizes were small.
That might be due to positive schizotypy's association with intuitive and sometimes biased decision-making rather than reflective and deliberate thought. Although the exact mechanism is likely complex, participants most often reported sharing political information to "raise awareness."
Researchers acknowledged several limitations, including small sample sizes in some cases, which limited the depth of exploratory analysis. Additionally, participants might not always be aware that the online information they shared was false.
Hence, the team recommends further studies investigating the relationship between positive schizotypy and the spreading of false information. The researchers concluded that although many people encounter false political information on social media, only a few share it.
The study indicated that specific motivations for sharing and individual psychological traits are linked to the dissemination of false material, whether accidentally or intentionally. The study's findings were published in the journal PLoS ONE.
