We humans are extremely susceptible to believing untruths!
We live in a post-truth era. This means that we have emotions and personal beliefs that override objective facts. We do not want to accept and believe objective truths.
An example could be a general belief, such as: "Many immigrants are criminals!" Such fears are widespread around the world. But do you know what the facts are? The fact is that "most immigrants are NOT criminals." Immigrants are 44 percent less likely to be incarcerated (CATO, 2017; Flagg, 2018, 2019). And that is just one example among many others.
There are some psychological explanations for this:
- Fake News (misinformation that reaches us intentionally)
- Repetition (statements become more credible when they are repeated)
- Strong examples, especially in the media (for example, people overestimate their risk of dying in a plane crash)
- Group identity and echo of like-minded individuals (a good opinion about our group helps us feel good about ourselves, which is why we tend to befriend people on social media who think like us - this is the "moral contagion in social networks").
Many of us care deeply about our beliefs, politically or otherwise! And we are often very sure and loyal to them. But we generally do not understand the details of many political issues. We are exposed daily to simplistic explanations of problems from partisan media sources.
We should all try to build a critical mindset, ask questions, research, especially when we are sure of a truth, to be humble and to know that we always overestimate ourselves and believe we know much more than we actually do!
A study by psychologists Tenelle Porter and Karina Schumann found that intellectual humility is associated with a greater willingness to listen to opposing viewpoints on contentious political issues. When we are not humble and curious about the true truth, we are extremely susceptible to manipulation.
To accept everything means to be gullible, to deny everything means to be cynical.
