If you relax, you can easily fall into this trap

False information travels far and quickly, much more so than credible content. According to a study published in ScienceMoral outrage is at the heart of this dynamic.

By triggering strong emotional reactions, disinformation tends to spread our psychological biases, often to the detriment of verification of facts.

Why resentment promotes disintegration

Disinformation is based on non-normative motivations: Instead of sharing information because it is true, we relay it because it resonates with our beliefs or our emotions.

Researchers have shown that false information is more likely to elicit a combination of moral outrage, anger, and disgust. On Facebook, disinformation links receive more “angry” reactions than credible articles. On Twitter, these contents cause a large amount of outraged reactions, increasing their visibility.

Effect of emotion on sharing

Data shows that the more content stirs outrage, the more it is shared, sometimes without even being read. Outrage lowers our vigilance, encouraging an impulse to share that largely benefits the sources of disinformation.

Two controlled experiments confirmed that headlines that evoked stronger outrage were shared more often, whether true or false. However, this emotion did not affect the participants’ ability to assess the veracity of the information, saying that outrage acts above all as an amplifier.

Implications for the fight against disinformation

This study highlights a major challenge: Strategies aimed at promoting verification of facts may not be enough in the face of abusive content. In fact, they exploit our psychology to bypass our vital senses.

To limit the impact of disinformation, platforms and decision-makers should specifically target the content that triggers the most outrage. The objective: to reduce their virality while encouraging more thoughtful sharing behavior.