Endorsing easily disproven claims linked to prioritizing symbolic strength(theconversation.com)
theconversation.com
Endorsing easily disproven claims linked to prioritizing symbolic strength
https://theconversation.com/winning-with-misinformation-new-research-identifies-link-between-endorsing-easily-disproven-claims-and-prioritizing-symbolic-strength-265652
59 comments
> declaring tribal allegiance
The article is not talking about signalling/declaring tribal allegiance. The article is saying that people support lies because they see the public argument as an informational battlespace that their side needs to be victorious over, and the truth is irrelevant. Endorsing lies is a necessary evil to prevent your side from losing ground.
The article is not talking about signalling/declaring tribal allegiance. The article is saying that people support lies because they see the public argument as an informational battlespace that their side needs to be victorious over, and the truth is irrelevant. Endorsing lies is a necessary evil to prevent your side from losing ground.
I think you can see this in how this behavior cuts across ideological lines. You see left people acting this way on many topics going back many years, and the same on the right. And then the ease with which many engaged with this "switch sides" (in terms of US politics), as with RFK Jr and his followers. I don't think it's really a traditional partisan or "tribal" thing for them.
> It's been well-documented for years that repeating known falsehoods is about declaring tribal allegiance
That's only a small part of what the article says.
That's only a small part of what the article says.
Can you expand on the other things that the article says? I don't see many new angles, all I see is reformulations of the exact same premise. Claims of strength vs weakness are directly analogous to professing in-group allegiance. Replacing tribalism with symbolism doesn't change the underlying mechanism, especially when a few paragraphs later they directly link symbolic thinking with "authoritarian attitudes", completing the circle back to tribalism.
I posted a bunch here:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45618020
> Claims of strength vs weakness are directly analogous to professing in-group allegiance.
They are mostly orthogonal imho. I can be strong without being in-group, and vice versa. In a group whose ideology is worship of power, then I can see a relationship but they aren't at all the same. For example, there are those who take the role of the weak who are worshipping power (and sometimes wanting it) and a defined power structure, like people who identify with being 'betas' and incels.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45618020
> Claims of strength vs weakness are directly analogous to professing in-group allegiance.
They are mostly orthogonal imho. I can be strong without being in-group, and vice versa. In a group whose ideology is worship of power, then I can see a relationship but they aren't at all the same. For example, there are those who take the role of the weak who are worshipping power (and sometimes wanting it) and a defined power structure, like people who identify with being 'betas' and incels.
It might not be a new area of inquiry, but the insight seems reasonably novel. If you read the article, it's about how Symbolic Show of Strength (SSS) beliefs are predictors for belief in misinformation. That speaks to something more granular about the psychological mechanisms behind the spread of misinformation. "Repeating known falsehoods is about declaring tribal allegiance" instead speaks to the existence of the phenomenon, more generally.
> These links help explain why strongman leaders often use misinformation symbolically to impress and control a population.
There's an entirely logical reason why authoritarians undermine truth and truth-generating social systems.
The #1 goal of an authoritarian leader is to acquire maximum concentrated power relative to other people. Everything else is secondary.
One of the main ways someone's power can be undermined is by many people combining their small individual powers into a single coherent group. But that requires coordination and agreement. Everyone has to row the boat in the same direction for it to work.
Reality has a natural coordinating effect since we all share the same material universe. Thus, the more people are grounded in reality, the easier it is for them to agree and coordinate. They have a larger set of facts which they already naturally agree on.
Therefore, to undermine that coordination, every authoritarian regime in history has sought to undermine institutions and people that aim to discover and disseminate facts about reality.
Being an edgelord who repeats known falsehoods plays into that. It's effectively throwing up flak into the information sphere to obscure facts that might otherwise disseminate.
There's an entirely logical reason why authoritarians undermine truth and truth-generating social systems.
The #1 goal of an authoritarian leader is to acquire maximum concentrated power relative to other people. Everything else is secondary.
One of the main ways someone's power can be undermined is by many people combining their small individual powers into a single coherent group. But that requires coordination and agreement. Everyone has to row the boat in the same direction for it to work.
Reality has a natural coordinating effect since we all share the same material universe. Thus, the more people are grounded in reality, the easier it is for them to agree and coordinate. They have a larger set of facts which they already naturally agree on.
Therefore, to undermine that coordination, every authoritarian regime in history has sought to undermine institutions and people that aim to discover and disseminate facts about reality.
Being an edgelord who repeats known falsehoods plays into that. It's effectively throwing up flak into the information sphere to obscure facts that might otherwise disseminate.
What's the benefit to an "edgelord", though? Why bother?
This is a deep question!
Authoritarianism has a lot of obvious appeal for the authority, but what is in it for the bootlickers? The answer isn't clear, but I think it mostly rests on a sense that it feels safest/strongest to be a member of the tribe whose alpha is the biggest baddest gorilla. People that support an authoritarian leader often believe that the leader will protect them and be on their side.
Of course, anyone who knows even a bit of history of authoritarianism knows that Dear Leader will happily kick people out at the slightest provocation and seems to always need his subjects to make sacrifices he himself never seems to have to make. But there is always no shortage of suckers who just want to feel like they're on a winning team.
Authoritarianism has a lot of obvious appeal for the authority, but what is in it for the bootlickers? The answer isn't clear, but I think it mostly rests on a sense that it feels safest/strongest to be a member of the tribe whose alpha is the biggest baddest gorilla. People that support an authoritarian leader often believe that the leader will protect them and be on their side.
Of course, anyone who knows even a bit of history of authoritarianism knows that Dear Leader will happily kick people out at the slightest provocation and seems to always need his subjects to make sacrifices he himself never seems to have to make. But there is always no shortage of suckers who just want to feel like they're on a winning team.
Is the opposite ever true — do some people publicly support truth, wisdom, and virtue to signify group membership?
The problem with that is that doing a thing that carries its own intrinsic value forms a poor signal because you can't tell if someone is doing it for signalling reasons or intrinsic reasons.
If you decided that a hallmark of your tribe is brushing your teeth, then when you see someone brushing their teeth you still can't really tell if they're in your tribe or not.
The best signals have either neutral or negative intrinsic value because the more costly the signal is, the more likely someone doing it values the signal.
If you decided that a hallmark of your tribe is brushing your teeth, then when you see someone brushing their teeth you still can't really tell if they're in your tribe or not.
The best signals have either neutral or negative intrinsic value because the more costly the signal is, the more likely someone doing it values the signal.
I think most people would claim that they support the truth. Even a troll might publicly claim to speak the truth, let alone someone who has an ideological motivation to believe likely falsehoods. Flat Earthers don't typically say "I know the Earth isn't flat". The best lies come with a grain of truth. And all appealing claims build on the listener's beliefs of how the world truly is. The truth is a great hook.
[deleted]
"Trust the science," comes to mind.
I trust science; I trust scientists less, and science journalism and its readers even less. Science as a human practice has never been a shining beacon of the truth. Even ignoring results that suit politics, I don't take much stock in psychology findings nowadays. And as someone interested in learning more about psychology, it's unfortunate. Science is valuable, but it should never obscure the truth. Even perfect science is not the sole arbiter of truth.
> Our survey measured it on a scale of how much people agreed with sentences including “Following coronavirus prevention guidelines means you have backed down” and “Continuous coronavirus coverage in the media is a sign we are losing.” Our interpretation is that people who responded positively to these statements would feel they “win” by endorsing misinformation – doing so can show “the enemy” that it will not gain any ground over people’s views.
The actual study is paywalled and not present on Sci-Hub, but I wonder what were all the questions, whether they tried it the other way around (with true claims, perhaps on some other topic), how different the answers were with those. I would guess it is implied, to support such an interpretation, but it is not stated explicitly, and from what is written, it sounds like people who believed in conspiracy theories (or were otherwise skeptical of mainstream views) were in fact unhappy to go along with prevention measures and annoyed by the mainstream coverage, which is not surprising at all.
The actual study is paywalled and not present on Sci-Hub, but I wonder what were all the questions, whether they tried it the other way around (with true claims, perhaps on some other topic), how different the answers were with those. I would guess it is implied, to support such an interpretation, but it is not stated explicitly, and from what is written, it sounds like people who believed in conspiracy theories (or were otherwise skeptical of mainstream views) were in fact unhappy to go along with prevention measures and annoyed by the mainstream coverage, which is not surprising at all.
Some excerpts:
> When people think symbolically this way, the literal issue – here, fighting COVID-19 – is secondary to a psychological war over people’s minds. In the minds of those who think they’re engaged in them, psychological wars are waged over opinions and attitudes, and are won via control of belief and messaging.
> people who responded positively to these statements would feel they “win” by endorsing misinformation – doing so can show “the enemy” that it will not gain any ground over people’s views.
> vaccination, masking or other COVID-19 prevention efforts could be seen as a symbolic risk that could “weaken” one psychologically even if they provide literal physical benefits.
> The more outlandish or easily disproved something is, the more powerful one might seem when standing by it. Being an edgelord – a contrarian online provocateur – or outright lying can, in their own odd way, appear “authentic.”
> this mindset was also strongly associated with authoritarian attitudes, including beliefs that some groups should dominate others and support for autocratic government. These links help explain why strongman leaders often use misinformation symbolically to impress and control a population.
> they want those far-fetched claims acted on anyway. The deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, for example, can be the desired end goal, even if the offered justification is a transparent farce.
> debunkers merely demonstrate that they’re the ones reacting, and are therefore weak.
Another way to describe it, I think, is that some people use words as weapons, not as a means of transmitting knowledge.
So many people - even sophisticated leaders - opposed to disinformation don't understand that, and keep debunking and arguing, demonstrating with everything they say that they are losing a fight they don't even understand.
> When people think symbolically this way, the literal issue – here, fighting COVID-19 – is secondary to a psychological war over people’s minds. In the minds of those who think they’re engaged in them, psychological wars are waged over opinions and attitudes, and are won via control of belief and messaging.
> people who responded positively to these statements would feel they “win” by endorsing misinformation – doing so can show “the enemy” that it will not gain any ground over people’s views.
> vaccination, masking or other COVID-19 prevention efforts could be seen as a symbolic risk that could “weaken” one psychologically even if they provide literal physical benefits.
> The more outlandish or easily disproved something is, the more powerful one might seem when standing by it. Being an edgelord – a contrarian online provocateur – or outright lying can, in their own odd way, appear “authentic.”
> this mindset was also strongly associated with authoritarian attitudes, including beliefs that some groups should dominate others and support for autocratic government. These links help explain why strongman leaders often use misinformation symbolically to impress and control a population.
> they want those far-fetched claims acted on anyway. The deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, for example, can be the desired end goal, even if the offered justification is a transparent farce.
> debunkers merely demonstrate that they’re the ones reacting, and are therefore weak.
Another way to describe it, I think, is that some people use words as weapons, not as a means of transmitting knowledge.
So many people - even sophisticated leaders - opposed to disinformation don't understand that, and keep debunking and arguing, demonstrating with everything they say that they are losing a fight they don't even understand.
People state things for a few reasons.
1) They believe it is true. 2) They want to believe it is true. 3) They want _you_ to believe it is true. 4) They want you to believe that _they_ believe it is true.
Not all of those things may be true and in most cases they are not.
Just take the simple statement: "God exists." and consider all the many possible motivations for people saying that.
1) They believe it is true. 2) They want to believe it is true. 3) They want _you_ to believe it is true. 4) They want you to believe that _they_ believe it is true.
Not all of those things may be true and in most cases they are not.
Just take the simple statement: "God exists." and consider all the many possible motivations for people saying that.
I agree, and also people say things for many more reasons: To cause various emotional reactions (love, excitement, engagement, anger, fear, etc.), to confuse, to signal to others, etc.
The article describes research into some of those reasons.
The article describes research into some of those reasons.
> For example, President Donald Trump incorrectly claimed in August 2025 that crime in Washington D.C. was at an all-time high, generating countless fact-checks of his premise and think pieces about his dissociation from reality.
This is a dubious example to give. Even NPR (which skews liberal) has given a much more nuanced[1] interpretation of the numbers. Obviously Trump's claim is hyperbolic and inflammatory (per his MO), but the sentiment does seem to resonate with at least some folks in DC, particularly ones that moved there in the early 2010s (when crime was at an all-time low).
[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/08/19/nx-s1-5506208/dc-crime-trump-...
This is a dubious example to give. Even NPR (which skews liberal) has given a much more nuanced[1] interpretation of the numbers. Obviously Trump's claim is hyperbolic and inflammatory (per his MO), but the sentiment does seem to resonate with at least some folks in DC, particularly ones that moved there in the early 2010s (when crime was at an all-time low).
[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/08/19/nx-s1-5506208/dc-crime-trump-...
I don't see anything in that link that suggests ANY interpretation could support Trump's "all-time high" claim. Substituting sentiment for data is doesn't make the claim true.
The article links to analysis showing as the frequency of violent attacks has decreased (slightly), those which are lethal have increased.
https://counciloncj.org/less-frequent-more-deadly/?fbclid=Iw...
> In a sample of 17 large American cities, the lethality of violent offenses increased 31% from 2019 to 2020 and was 20% higher in 2024 than in 2018. Thirteen of the 17 cities had higher lethality levels in 2024 than in 2018.
https://counciloncj.org/less-frequent-more-deadly/?fbclid=Iw...
> In a sample of 17 large American cities, the lethality of violent offenses increased 31% from 2019 to 2020 and was 20% higher in 2024 than in 2018. Thirteen of the 17 cities had higher lethality levels in 2024 than in 2018.
The peak of murders in DC was 482 in 1991. In 2024, it was 187.
That pattern will be true in nearly every city you look at. We are not at all time highs or even close in most cities.
That pattern will be true in nearly every city you look at. We are not at all time highs or even close in most cities.
Yes, the only explanation for why people endorse political hyperbole is that they know its misinformation and they're doing so for the symbolic power of believing a falsehood.
Or, ya know, maybe a rise in the lethality of crime in a society already one of the most profoundly violent in the world has too little hyperbole associated with it.
But when Greta Thunbery uses hyperbole that's politcal rallying to a cause and colition building for a serious threat. But when trump mobilizes resources for police funding in cities with absurd levels of violence, now anyone who endorses this must be really an authoritarian dupe who delights in being mislead.
Or, ya know, maybe a rise in the lethality of crime in a society already one of the most profoundly violent in the world has too little hyperbole associated with it.
But when Greta Thunbery uses hyperbole that's politcal rallying to a cause and colition building for a serious threat. But when trump mobilizes resources for police funding in cities with absurd levels of violence, now anyone who endorses this must be really an authoritarian dupe who delights in being mislead.
Tribal thinking is unhealthy.
When Greta lies it's a lie. When Trump lies it's a lie.
When Greta lies it's a lie. When Trump lies it's a lie.
It's naive to think people interpret the claims literally. Their political interpretation doesn't change if Trump had instead said, "the crime levels are serious and urgent"
Emotional valence is communicated at a literal level in hyperbole. "You're the best mum in the world" isnt misinformation
Emotional valence is communicated at a literal level in hyperbole. "You're the best mum in the world" isnt misinformation
> "You're the best mum in the world" isnt misinformation
To use the original article's language, the sentence "you're the best mum in the world" and "you're an exemplary mother because you take care of your children's emotional and material needs" are symbolically equivalent, even though the former is clearly a hyperbole.
To use the original article's language, the sentence "you're the best mum in the world" and "you're an exemplary mother because you take care of your children's emotional and material needs" are symbolically equivalent, even though the former is clearly a hyperbole.
“Crime increased in recent years”
Is a very different claim from
“Crime is at the highest level it’s ever been”
Is a very different claim from
“Crime is at the highest level it’s ever been”
This stupid article is being pushed by multiple channels today. There's an easier explanation other than the self-serving "Our interpretation is that people who responded positively to these statements would feel they 'win' by endorsing misinformation – doing so can show 'the enemy' that it will not gain any ground over people’s views." Which incidentally, is a conclusion based on no science, it's just a WaPo editorial.
People believed a bunch of nonsense because people in authority were knowingly lying to them and intentionally confusing the facts at every turn. Normal people have no expertise, so they need to trust someone, and the people who were appointed to those positions of trust showed themselves willing to lie to help their own finances and careers, and to push transient political agendas.
They were left to trust other random people, like their religious leaders, or their family members - anybody who seemed like they had any moral grounding or conscience at all. They also trusted people who also pointed out that official institutional figures were lying - which is a mistake. It's easy for a scammer to point out another scammer, that doesn't mean you should trust him.
All the 5G conspiracy theories are just a reaction to how aggressively and undemocratically 5G was pushed. People intelligently and reasonably assume that if you are willing to run over everybody to do something from which there are enormous amounts of money to be made, you might not give two shits about any health consequences. This is also true, and they are right, but it doesn't mean that there are health consequences, which is the mistake.
But you know everything would have happened the same way if 5G were going to end up doubling the cancer rate or autism, or whatever other bad thing. We just wouldn't hear about it for 50 years, the people who got rich from it would have died of old age surrounded by their fat happy grandchildren, and their silver-spoon kids (your bosses) would be the ones in charge of the investigations and the remedies.
People believed a bunch of nonsense because people in authority were knowingly lying to them and intentionally confusing the facts at every turn. Normal people have no expertise, so they need to trust someone, and the people who were appointed to those positions of trust showed themselves willing to lie to help their own finances and careers, and to push transient political agendas.
They were left to trust other random people, like their religious leaders, or their family members - anybody who seemed like they had any moral grounding or conscience at all. They also trusted people who also pointed out that official institutional figures were lying - which is a mistake. It's easy for a scammer to point out another scammer, that doesn't mean you should trust him.
All the 5G conspiracy theories are just a reaction to how aggressively and undemocratically 5G was pushed. People intelligently and reasonably assume that if you are willing to run over everybody to do something from which there are enormous amounts of money to be made, you might not give two shits about any health consequences. This is also true, and they are right, but it doesn't mean that there are health consequences, which is the mistake.
But you know everything would have happened the same way if 5G were going to end up doubling the cancer rate or autism, or whatever other bad thing. We just wouldn't hear about it for 50 years, the people who got rich from it would have died of old age surrounded by their fat happy grandchildren, and their silver-spoon kids (your bosses) would be the ones in charge of the investigations and the remedies.
> a conclusion based on no science
What about the research they did, including surveying 5,535 people across eight countries?
What science are your claims based on?
> stupid
Why is it so important for you to bring them down?
What about the research they did, including surveying 5,535 people across eight countries?
What science are your claims based on?
> stupid
Why is it so important for you to bring them down?
> What about the research they did, including surveying 5,535 people across eight countries?
The size of the study is irrelevant if we can’t verify the methodology, and of course those details, if they were published at all, are behind the paywall.
The size of the study is irrelevant if we can’t verify the methodology, and of course those details, if they were published at all, are behind the paywall.
> those details, if they were published at all
They link to the study. These critcisms are a little hard to fathom as information: Is it symbolism of something, the same thing they describe?
They link to the study. These critcisms are a little hard to fathom as information: Is it symbolism of something, the same thing they describe?
> They link to the study.
Yeah—you see, if you click on that link you’ve identified, you’ll find the study itself is paywalled.
Yeah—you see, if you click on that link you’ve identified, you’ll find the study itself is paywalled.
I don't like paywalls for science, but that doesn't mean that all that research doesn't exist.
[edit: removed mistaken quotes of and references to another commenter; sorry]
[edit: removed mistaken quotes of and references to another commenter; sorry]
Wait, so is it stupid non-science we should insult? Or is it just a claim that we can't verify without a deep dive into methodology? Hopefully those are two very different things.
I did not and am not taking a stance on the alleged science or non-science because I can’t bloody read it.
EDIT: You are quoting an entirely different user, I never said it wasn’t science. THAT WAS SOMEONE ELSE.
EDIT: You are quoting an entirely different user, I never said it wasn’t science. THAT WAS SOMEONE ELSE.
Thank you for illustrating the point of the article. You don't care if any of the claims you're making are true, you are simply looking to score a goal for your tribe. And all of us who disagree with you are simply weak-minded because we don't accept your "easier explanations", right?
I don't think 5G was push undemocratically. A small group of people complaining and getting pushed aside is not undemocratic. They were a tiny minority.
I mean, starting with the question of whether or not 5G was “pushed undemocratically” sort of skips over the question of whether or not is should be a democratic decision…
It is a technical decision. We make the democratic decision to have organizations like the FCC to hold the technical expertise to evaluate whether something like 5G is a good idea. Deciding democratically as a country that we want to defer some questions to experts is a fine thing to do.
I haven’t seen any actual professional RF engineers worried about 5G. From my mostly lay point of view: these are not scary frequencies.
It is a technical decision. We make the democratic decision to have organizations like the FCC to hold the technical expertise to evaluate whether something like 5G is a good idea. Deciding democratically as a country that we want to defer some questions to experts is a fine thing to do.
I haven’t seen any actual professional RF engineers worried about 5G. From my mostly lay point of view: these are not scary frequencies.
The more formal point you're making here is that the survey data social psychologists work with can be explained by an infinite number of hypothesis, and the "statistical testing" they do is basically pseudoscience. All they ask is "is my favoured hypothesis more likely than random?" and that's true, but it says nothing about lots of other explanations.
Here everything can be explained by lines of trust, and resilience to information from low-trust sources.
Indeed, it's highly rational to highly doubt sources you do not trust, because you are almost never in a position to validation information.
Either way, the explanations they choose lead to a clearly partisan political narrative, way outside of the scope of their survey studies, that science washes attacks on trump and his supporters.
Here everything can be explained by lines of trust, and resilience to information from low-trust sources.
Indeed, it's highly rational to highly doubt sources you do not trust, because you are almost never in a position to validation information.
Either way, the explanations they choose lead to a clearly partisan political narrative, way outside of the scope of their survey studies, that science washes attacks on trump and his supporters.
>All the 5G conspiracy theories are just a reaction to how aggressively and undemocratically 5G was pushed.
What the hell does this even mean? Are we upset that carriers and handset manufacturers adopting 5G wasn't put up for a vote? Did adoption of 5G cause some great harm to people?
What the hell does this even mean? Are we upset that carriers and handset manufacturers adopting 5G wasn't put up for a vote? Did adoption of 5G cause some great harm to people?
You argue that people have been lead astray by lying politicians. I think it's equally likely that opportunist politicians are following these conspiracy theories, promoting them to benefit from the phenomenon observed in the study.
It's a shame they detoured from social psychology into politics. The claim that false information has social value, and therefore symbolic value, is easy to substantiate without the partisan political analysis which amounts to, "and that's why our political enemies do it!". Very childish.
Disagree, it is important to point out the tactics people use against each other, if we do not demonstrate and point out the weaponry in the world then we normalize servitude to the abusers. Arm and defend yourself against your abuser and know their game.
How did they detour into politics? They are addressing events in the real world, which is what science is about, and for social psychologists that definitely includes politics.
They did put a picture of Donald Trump in there. That's not subtle. Granted, it may have been the editor's choice rather than the authors'.
The whole thing is just "here's a narrow result in psychology" connected to grand theories about contemporary politics which implicate the current administration and its supporters into a reductionist explanatory analysis that is widely out of the scope of what they've actually studied.
They did not study trump, trump supporters, trump's political project, its motivations, their motivations, authoritarianism, etc. All of that analysis in this article is partisan politics with sciecne-washing.
They did not study trump, trump supporters, trump's political project, its motivations, their motivations, authoritarianism, etc. All of that analysis in this article is partisan politics with sciecne-washing.
If they are studying universal features of human psychology, their analysis should pertain to these features.
By wading into contemporary politics and attributing "authoritarian" psychology to people who want to believe, e.g., what trump says -- you're only making a partisan political statement. This hypothesis is one amongst an infinite number, and has nothing to do with their study.
"Oh but it feels true!" is exactly the opposite of science. They did not study Trump, nor his political strategies, not their supposed underlying psychological motivations.
One can find in every government in the world so-called "misinformation", and find in people who support those governments, credulity about this misinformation. They havent studied any of the relevant domains to make any of these partisan political claims, even if they are true.
By wading into contemporary politics, they are giving the veener of science to highly partisan claims about the supposed psychology of political actors. That isnt what they have studied.
By wading into contemporary politics and attributing "authoritarian" psychology to people who want to believe, e.g., what trump says -- you're only making a partisan political statement. This hypothesis is one amongst an infinite number, and has nothing to do with their study.
"Oh but it feels true!" is exactly the opposite of science. They did not study Trump, nor his political strategies, not their supposed underlying psychological motivations.
One can find in every government in the world so-called "misinformation", and find in people who support those governments, credulity about this misinformation. They havent studied any of the relevant domains to make any of these partisan political claims, even if they are true.
By wading into contemporary politics, they are giving the veener of science to highly partisan claims about the supposed psychology of political actors. That isnt what they have studied.
Could you cite at least something in the article that you are referring to? What you say doesn't match what I read. It becomes misinformation itself otherwise.
> "Oh but it feels true!"
Where is that said or implied? They did research and described it.
> attributing "authoritarian" psychology to people who want to believe, e.g., what trump says -- you're only making a partisan political statement. This hypothesis is one amongst an infinite number, and has nothing to do with their study.
They did indeed study that and discussed the research. We need to study partisan behavior without being dismissed as partisan ourselves - otherwise, we just operate in the dark, shut down by partisan attacks.
> One can find in every government in the world so-called "misinformation", and find in people who support those governments, credulity about this misinformation.
There is precipitation everywhere, but some places are deserts and some are rainforests and there is everything in between, and there are many patterns and causes, from monsoons to mist from SF Bay. To dismiss all precipitation research because 'rain is everywhere' is meaningless.
You're making many claims, but have nothing to back it up.
> They did not study Trump, nor his political strategies
They didn't talk about Trump.
> "Oh but it feels true!"
Where is that said or implied? They did research and described it.
> attributing "authoritarian" psychology to people who want to believe, e.g., what trump says -- you're only making a partisan political statement. This hypothesis is one amongst an infinite number, and has nothing to do with their study.
They did indeed study that and discussed the research. We need to study partisan behavior without being dismissed as partisan ourselves - otherwise, we just operate in the dark, shut down by partisan attacks.
> One can find in every government in the world so-called "misinformation", and find in people who support those governments, credulity about this misinformation.
There is precipitation everywhere, but some places are deserts and some are rainforests and there is everything in between, and there are many patterns and causes, from monsoons to mist from SF Bay. To dismiss all precipitation research because 'rain is everywhere' is meaningless.
You're making many claims, but have nothing to back it up.
> They did not study Trump, nor his political strategies
They didn't talk about Trump.
> They didn't talk about Trump.
They literally did. You're not completely wrong about GP's other silliness, but Trump is specifically named toward the end of the article.
They literally did. You're not completely wrong about GP's other silliness, but Trump is specifically named toward the end of the article.
Studying the widespread beliefs in misinformation about COVID-19 is perfectly valid, and important. It just so happens that the beliefs in question were overwhelmingly held by members of a very specific political group. The research described in the article helps explain this connection.
A quick web search on fake news and tribalism reveals these earlier articles:
2017: https://fortune.com/2017/01/13/fake-news-tribalism/
2017: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/11/upshot/the-real-story-abo...
2023: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/xge-xge0001374.pd...