Adam Berinsky,
Professor of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
For over 15 years, I've studied a phenomenon that has become increasingly central to our political discourse: how false beliefs take hold and persist in the public mind. The stakes couldn't be higher. If lies continue to crowd out truth, how can Americans maintain meaningful dialogue about pressing political issues? If citizens believe their leaders capable of terrible actions, how can they trust their government with any authority?
Understanding the Problem
The scale of the challenge is substantial, but perhaps not in the way many assume. My research reveals that while relatively few people believe a lot of rumors, a lot of people believe some rumors. In surveys I've conducted since 2010, while only about 5 percent of respondents endorsed more than four out of seven common political rumors, over 70 percent expressed support for at least one.
These numbers alone are concerning, but just as troubling as the "believers" are the substantial number of people who say they aren't sure what to believe. When citizens say they are "not sure" about a rumor's veracity, they often aren't expressing simple lack of knowledge. In follow-up questions, many citizens articulate specific doubts about official explanations, or point to evidence supporting alternative theories. Any position short of outright rejecting a rumor can enhance its credibility by suggesting cause for ambivalence. The presence of these uncertain citizens can aid the spread of rumors and undermine the legitimacy of our democratic system. And in the modern media environment, this uncertainty can multiply exponentially.
Consider the case of the "death panels" rumor that emerged during the 2009 healthcare reform debate. The claim that the Affordable Care Act would create panels to determine whether elderly and sick individuals would receive healthcare based on their "worth to society" was demonstrably false. Yet in my polling, 33 percent of the public thought this rumor was true, with another 22 percent unsure. Such rumors are not mere fanciful beliefs; they had real political implications. For one, the Obama administration ultimately removed provisions for end-of-life counseling from Medicare, at least partly due to the persistence of these false claims.
The Architecture of Belief
What drives these patterns of belief? My research reveals two key factors. First, there is a general predisposition toward conspiratorial thinking - a particular way of understanding how the world works, where complex events are often attributed to hidden forces and secret plans. Second, when it comes to politics, partisanship reigns supreme: where you stand depends largely on where you sit. Republicans are more likely to accept rumors about Democratic politicians and policies, while Democrats more readily embrace stories that implicate Republicans.
Most critically, these factors interact. Political partisans who are prone to conspiratorial thinking are the least likely to question rumors that impugn their political adversaries. Through experimental work, I've found that most people who endorse these rumors genuinely believe them - this isn't just partisan "cheap talk" or people expressing general antipathy toward politicians they dislike. When given incentives to tell the truth or faced with potential costs for maintaining their beliefs, most people stick to their beliefs.
The Challenge of Correction
These false beliefs are remarkably difficult to correct. My experiments demonstrate that taking a conventional approach - providing authoritative corrections from not-partisan sources - often falls short. When presented with corrections from sources like the American Medical Association, people initially change their minds, but the effect quickly fades. Within a week, their beliefs often revert to where they started. Even more troubling, simply repeating a rumor - even in the context of debunking it - can make people more likely to believe it later, through a process psychologists call "fluency." The more familiar a claim feels, the more likely people are to believe it, regardless of its truth value.
However, there is one approach has shown more lasting success: corrections from unlikely sources. In my experiments, when a Republican politician spoke out against the death panel rumors, citizens across the political spectrum were more likely to reject the false claim, and this effect persisted longer than other corrections. The messenger, it seems, matters as much as the message. When politicians speak against their apparent political interests, their words carry special weight - even among those who normally disagree with them. This finding suggests that partisanship, usually seen as part of the problem, might actually be leveraged as part of the solution.
Moving Forward: A Multi-Layered Approach
This insight points toward more sophisticated approaches to fighting misinformation. While there may not be a single magic bullet that can stop misinformation's spread, we can develop more effective strategies by understanding how rumors take hold and spread. We need what I call a "Swiss cheese model" of fighting misinformation - multiple layers of defense that work together to create a more resilient information ecosystem.
This model includes working with social media platforms to encourage people to think about truth before sharing, developing better fact-checking systems, and creating more sophisticated correction strategies that account for both psychological predispositions and partisan dynamics. And, based on the success of correcting rumors about death panels, we should harness the power of unexpected voices - those actors who speak against their apparent political interests may be our most effective messengers in the fight against false beliefs.
The challenge of political misinformation isn't going away. If anything, new technologies and evolving social media landscapes make it a more pressing problem than ever. But by understanding its roots and developing evidence-based interventions that go beyond simple solutions, we can work toward building a healthier information environment - one that better serves our democratic ideals and institutions. The functioning of democracy depends on it.