Educated but easily fooled? Who falls for misinformation – and why

Now researchers at Germany’s famed Max Planck Institute for Human Development say they have identified who is most susceptible to online misinformation and why. 

Their analysis reveals surprising patterns in how demographic and psychological factors – including age, education, political identity, analytical thinking and motivated reflection – affect people’s ability to assess the accuracy of information. 

For instance, individuals with higher levels of education are just as likely to fall for misinformation as those with a lower level of education.  

The research paper has been published in the peer-reviewed journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

“There is a lot of research on misinformation right now, but with the volume of work, it has become increasingly difficult to see the connections between different factors,” explains lead author Mubashir Sultan.  

He and his colleagues conducted a meta-analysis (a statistical method where researchers combine data from multiple studies on the same topic to reach a more comprehensive conclusion) using data from the US. They examined how factors such as education, age, gender, political identity, analytical thinking, partisan bias, motivated reflection, and familiarity with news have an impact on people’s online misinformation veracity judgments. 

The researchers found no significant impact of education on people’s ability to distinguish between true and false information. This contradicts the widespread belief that more educated individuals are likely to be less susceptible to misinformation, especially as higher education teaches us critical thinking. 

Assumptions about age and misinformation are challenged 

The study also challenges assumptions about age and misinformation. While older adults are often portrayed as more vulnerable to fake news, the analysis found that they were better than younger adults at distinguishing between true and false headlines. Older adults were also more sceptical and tended to label headlines as false more often. 

Paradoxically, however, previous research has consistently shown that older adults engage with and share more misinformation online. 

Individuals with higher analytical thinking skills – those who are better at logically evaluating information, identifying patterns, and systematically solving problems – performed better overall and were more sceptical (tending to classify news as false).  

Politically, people were more likely to believe that news that aligned with their political identity was true and to disregard news that was not aligned with their political identity. This is a phenomenon known as partisan bias. 

However, a counterintuitive finding was that individuals with higher analytical thinking were more susceptible to partisan bias. This tendency is known as motivated reflection, which is a cognitive process where individuals’ analytical reasoning works against them to protect their pre-existing beliefs, values, or partisan affiliations. 

The strongest effect in the meta-analysis was the influence of familiarity. When participants reported having already seen a news headline, they were more likely to believe it was true. This finding underscores the danger of repeated exposure to misinformation, particularly on social media. 

These results come at a critical time. The World Economic Forum’s ‘Global Risks Report 2024’ identifies misinformation as one of the greatest risks to the world in the next two years. 

“The results highlight the urgent need to integrate media literacy and critical thinking skills into school curricula from an early age. Younger adults, despite being considered ‘digital natives,’ were less able to distinguish between true and false news,” says Ralf Kurvers, a senior research scientist at the institute. 

You can find out more about the study here.