Do people have a BS blindspot? How many people think they are better at detecting misinformation than in reality?
Canadian psychologists, Shane Littrell (University of Toronto) and Jonathan Fugelsang (University of Waterloo) have been examining misinformation for a number of years. Last year, their paper in Thinking and Reasoning revealed a somewhat dangerous paradox. It seems the more confident we are in being able to distinguish between truth and misinformation, the more likely we are to be susceptible to false information: what they call the BS blindspot. Not only do the people worst at detecting misinformation think their abilities exceed reality, they also think they are better than most.
As I have been writing over the past few months (December’s “Creating more sophisticated content consumers”, and January’s “Dealing With disinformation”), we need to understand how to counter misinformation.
Littrell and Fuselsang have a new study released in Applied Cognitive Psychology [pdf, 4 MB] found “that asking people to reflect on why they find certain statements meaningful helps reduce receptivity to some types of misinformation but not others.”
It seems that much depends on the source of the information. The researchers found that claims from perceived experts can be largely immune to the kinds of interventions relying on reflective thinking.
In Illuminating human bias and our ability to be misled, Waterloo quotes Professor Fugelsang endorsing a long-term digital literacy strategy. “We need to teach misinformation awareness, healthy skepticism and encouraging reflective thinking early on in life — as early as elementary school.”
Is reflection the best medicine to treat an epidemic of misinformation? It depends. But, Littrell and Fugelsang suggest a reflective pause for anyone encountering information related to health, finance or politics, especially online.
We need to become more sophisticated consumers of content and information, to see past the BS blindspot. It needs to be considered a key component of improving our overall digital literacy.