User Psychology Study

First step towards fighting fake news: the psychology of political sharing on social media

(Image source: https://www.socialbakers.com/blog/2658-the-fake-news-debate-on-social-who-s-responsible)

Abstract

As the world now starts to see fake news as a serious threat, the psychological factors of the spread of fake news should be examined closely. To understand the psychology of political sharing, we will start from the beginning: why are people motivated to share knowledge on social media? Next, among all kinds of content, we will examine how news and political content is perceived on social media compared to traditional media. Finally, we can take our learnings to the final question: what motivates people to share news and political content on social media? With crucial psychological insights on news sharing, we can then come up with application ideas that may help mitigate the spread of fake news or improve the spread of accurate information.

Why is this a problem?

False information spreads farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth, according to research.[1] This finding poses a huge threat to all of us, as post-truth politics, populism, and conflicts thrive with the help of fake news. They tend to ignite people’s fear, hatred and all kinds of emotions, particularly negative ones, leading to irrational behaviors and conflicts. It is especially powerful and dangerous when politics is involved, a well-known example being the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A BuzzFeed News analysis found that in the final three months of the presidential campaign, 20 top-performing false election stories from hoax sites and hyperpartisan blogs generated 8,711,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook, beating the 20 best-performing election stories from major news websites which generated a total of 7,367,000 shares, reactions, and comments on Facebook.[2] Everyone who hopes for a better society are thus deeply concerned: are we making political decisions based on false information?

With the goal of fighting fake news, we should start with examining the underlying reasons of the spread of fake news. Yet before tackling why people prefer to spread fake news, I suggest we first look at what motivates individuals to share political information and opinions on social media, through the lens of psychology.

Theories at play

Receptivity Theory [3]

All content, or cultural memes, has to survive different psychological bottlenecks in order to proliferate when experienced by humans, including bottlenecks of attention, perception, memory, motivation, self-image, and social influence. If they fail to survive any of the stages, they will be thrown into an indefinite sea of abandoned memes. Among all bottlenecks, the social influence bottleneck determines whether audience will recommend the meme to others, which is particularly relevant to our discussion on social sharing.

Uses and Gratification Theory [4]

Uses and gratifications theory (UGT, or U&G) assumes that media users actively select the types of media and media content they consume to gratify various psychological needs. According to research, goals can be grouped into five uses, including: [5]

be informed or educated
identify with characters of the situation in the media environment
simple entertainment
enhance social interaction
escape from the stresses of daily life

Social Capital Theory

“Social capital”, stated Pierre Bourdieu (1992) in an interview, “is the sum of the resources, actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of possessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition.” [6] Simply put, social capital is the investment in social relations with expected returns in the marketplace. Four explanations can be offered as to why social capital works: [7]

Information flow is facilitated
Social ties may exert influence on agents who play a critical role in decisions (e.g., hiring or promotion) involving the individual
Social ties may be conceived as social credentials
Social relations reinforce identity and recognition

Why do people share knowledge on social media?

Applying the uses and gratification approach, people use social media in order to fulfill their needs such as informative needs or social needs. This takes us to the next question: what kinds of needs are fulfilled when people share knowledge or information on social media?

Study shows that the facets of social capital — social interaction ties, reciprocity, and identification — increase individuals' quantity of knowledge sharing.[8] In other words, social interaction and identification needs can be fulfilled by sharing knowledge. Another research reveals that people contribute their knowledge when they perceive that it enhances their professional reputations and when they are structurally embedded in the network, yet reciprocity is not expected.[9] Referring to social capital theory, the social influence bottleneck [3] also points out that recommending memes and warning others against them raises our social capital. Basking in reflected glory (BIRG) also states that individuals associate themselves with known successful others such that the winner's success becomes the individual's own accomplishment, first studied by Robert Cialdini in 1976. In other words, if the content is successful, the person who shared it on social media also gains a sense of accomplishment.

People share knowledge on social media in the hope of gaining social interaction, identification, professional reputation, and a sense of accomplishment.

How do people perceive news on social media?

In contrast to traditional media where editors are gatekeepers who decide what the public needs to know while people are passively receiving news, social media enables people to engage actively and proactively in terms of news producing. Nowadays, people can not only receive news from various sources, but they can also create, interpret, discuss, and distribute news with their social media accounts. With the brand new form of citizen journalism where journalists no longer has the authority, how do people perceive news on social media?

A study based in Canada shows that for now audience prefer to receive news and links from family and friends than from journalists.[10] Social sharing is significant; meaning that users bypass professional editors and instead receive news based on the recommendations of people they trust. In addition to family and friends, opinion leaders are also crucial in the spread of news. Research reveals that opinion leaders are perceived to have significance in that they filter, flag, interpret and decode news for readers. However, it is not evident that opinion leaders are necessarily professional journalists. In fact, friends’ sharing is of greater importance than the news disseminated by the media business.[11]

In terms of type of news, among the abundant offerings online, people are more drawn to novel news. “Novelty attracts human attention, contributes to productive decision-making, and encourages information sharing because novelty updates our understanding of the world. When information is novel, it is not only surprising, but also more valuable, both from an information theoretic perspective [in that it provides the greatest aid to decision-making] and from a social perspective [in that it conveys social status on one that is “in the know” or has access to unique “inside” information].” (Vosoughi, Roy & Aral, 2018)

On social media people prefer to receive news and news interpretation from family, friends, and opinion leaders who are not necessarily professional journalists, rather than from professional media business. As for type of news, people prefer novel news for informative and social reasons.

Why do people share news on social media?

Applying the uses and gratification approach, study concludes that status seeking and socializing were the main gratifications users derived through sharing news in social media.[12]

For status-seeker, they share news so as to allow others to access relevant content. If the information one shared turns out to be credible and relevant, they in turn will appear to be credible and be established as an opinion leader in the social network, as described by the theory of basking in reflected glory. According to Vosoughi [1], sharing novel information conveys social status on one that is “in the know” or has access to unique “inside” information.

As for socialization, through sharing news stories in the virtual community, people may feel that they have made contributions to the group and are therefore affiliated with it. The act of sharing shows their identification with the community. Further, by sharing news in a social network, users can easily identify who else are also interested in the same topics and initiate contact with them.[12] Sharing news on certain topics is essentially a signal that the individual cares about the issues and is open for conversations.

People share news on social media in order to gain social status and socialize with affiliated communities.

Implications for the fight against fake news

With the motivation factors uncovered, future research can then take a step further to tackle the fake news crisis from a psychologic and communication perspective. Key motivators highlighted from the above include social status, socialization, identification, and professional reputation. These are valuable psychological factors that should be considered in the fight against fake news. Knowing that people are motivated by the gain of social capital, on the other side of the coin, they are also cautious with the loss of social capital. If the news people shared turns out to be fake, their status and reputation is harmed, and others will be less likely to socialize with them. With the fear of losing social capital, people are motivated to raise their sharing threshold and check the source before sharing news, which decreases the likelihood of fake news being shared.

As for application, in order to mitigate the spread of fake news, we should remind people that sharing fake news can put their social status and reputation at risk. In particular, social media sites and other digital content designers should include such warning factors into their designs. In addition to encouraging users to share content, businesses and designers should also make ethical choices in order to fight fake news, such as reminding users to check if the source is reliable before sharing and spreading content, and warning them about the loss of social capital if they spread false information. Further research can then be conducted to reveal how people alter their news sharing decision when reminders or warnings are delivered beforehand.

When everyone is motivated to share accurate information instead of fake news, the dangerous power of fake news will be deeply impaired, and we can then take one step closer to a transparent and respectful society that we have always long for.

Reference

[1] Vosoughi, S., Roy, D., & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(6380), 1146–1151. doi: 10.1126/science.aap9559

[2] Silverman, C. (2016, November 16). This analysis shows how viral fake election news stories outperformed real news on Facebook. Retrieved from https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/viral-fake-election-news-outperformed-real-news-on-facebook.

[3] Evans, D.C. (2017). Bottlenecks: Aligning UX Design with User Psychology. New York, NY: Appress.

[4] Severin, W. J., & Tankard, J. W. (2008). Communication theories: origins, methods, and uses in the mass media. Brantford, Ont.: Resource Services Library, Provincial Schools Branch Division.

[5] McQuail, D. (2010). Mass communication theory: an introduction. London: Sage Publications.

[6] Matiaske, W. (2013). Social capital in organizations: an exchange theory approach. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars.

[7] Lin, N. (2011). Social capital: a theory of social structure and action. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press.

[8] Chiu, C.-M., Hsu, M.-H., & Wang, E. T. (2006). Understanding knowledge sharing in virtual communities: An integration of social capital and social cognitive theories. Decision Support Systems, 42(3), 1872–1888. doi: 10.1016/j.dss.2006.04.001

[9] Wasko, & Faraj. (2005). Why Should I Share? Examining Social Capital and Knowledge Contribution in Electronic Networks of Practice. MIS Quarterly, 29(1), 35. doi: 10.2307/25148667

[10] Hermida, A., Fletcher, F., Korell, D., & Logan, D. (2012). Share, Like, Recommend. Journalism Studies, 13(5-6), 815–824. doi: 10.1080/1461670x.2012.664430

[11] Bergström, A., & Belfrage, M. J. (2018). News in Social Media. Digital Journalism, 6(5), 583–598. doi: 10.1080/21670811.2018.1423625

[12] Lee, C. S., Ma, L., & Goh, D. H.-L. (2011). Why Do People Share News in Social Media? Active Media Technology Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 129–140. doi: 10.1007/978-3-642-23620-4_17

This is a class project for Psychology of User Experience taught by David Evans at University of Washington.