Summary: Individuals who score higher on dark personality traits are more likely to accept fake news, particularly when the false information aligns with their self-interest. Even when confronted with scientific evidence, people with these traits tend to reshape facts to suit their preferences. The study found that stronger self-interested tendencies made it harder for participants to distinguish objective facts from mere opinions.
Source: University of Würzburg
“Some people believe Fake News even when the scientific facts clearly contradict them,” says psychologist Jan Philipp Rudloff. “We wanted to know why this is the case and investigate the role played by our ideas about the nature of knowledge and facts.”
Rudloff, a PhD candidate working with communication psychologist Professor Markus Appel, led an extensive experiment to explore these questions. More than 600 participants from the United States evaluated a series of short headlines—for example, statements about comparative job growth between recent presidential terms—and judged whether each headline was accurate.
Measuring epistemic beliefs and the dark factor of personality
After assessing the headlines, participants completed a detailed questionnaire designed to capture their epistemic beliefs: how much they rely on intuition when judging information, how much they value objective evidence, and whether they suspect that politics, science, or the media manipulate facts to suit their interests. Rudloff explains that these attitudes are collectively referred to as “epistemic beliefs” (from the Greek epistéme, meaning knowledge or understanding).
The questionnaire also measured the extent to which individuals prioritize their own goals at the expense of others—a construct known as the “dark factor” of personality. This underlying tendency is common across a range of dark traits, including narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism.
“Everyone is selfish to a certain degree,” Rudloff notes. “But it becomes problematic when self-interest is so dominant that the needs of others no longer matter.”
Key findings: post-truth epistemic beliefs weaken fact discernment
The study found a clear relationship between epistemic beliefs and the ability to tell true from false. Participants who were less convinced that objective facts exist—those endorsing so-called “post-truth” epistemic beliefs—were less able to distinguish accurate news from fake news. Separately, individuals scoring higher on the dark factor of personality were also worse at discerning fake news. Importantly, this link between the dark factor and poorer discernment was explained by the tendency of those individuals to hold post-truth epistemic beliefs.
“You could call their beliefs post-factual; they only believe what feels true to them,” Rudloff emphasizes. Because these individuals are inclined to trust what aligns with their feelings or interests, they have more difficulty discriminating between true and false claims and therefore are more likely to accept misinformation as true.
Rudloff offers an example: someone might refuse to wear a mask because they claim the coronavirus narrative was invented by the media. When people both want a certain conclusion and doubt the existence of independent scientific facts, they can readily reshape reality to justify their behavior.
Rudloff and Appel previously collaborated with Dr. Fabian Hutmacher to show that individuals with higher scores on dark personality traits were more likely to endorse COVID-19 conspiracy theories during the pandemic. Still, Rudloff stresses that susceptibility to misinformation is not limited to people with dark personality traits. Rather, epistemic beliefs—the degree to which a person relies on evidence and rigorous argument—appear to be the central factor. People who do not value sound evidence are unlikely to be persuaded by fact-checking, regardless of their other personality characteristics.
How epistemic beliefs form and why they matter
Psychologists believe epistemic beliefs form and solidify during childhood and adolescence. Young children often see issues in simple, black-and-white terms: ideas are right or wrong, good or bad. As people mature, they typically learn to distinguish matters of preference from questions grounded in evidence—for example, recognizing that musical tastes are subjective while climate change is an evidence-based scientific issue.
However, not everyone adopts this nuanced approach. When people treat all opinions as equally valid—even on topics where empirical evidence is overwhelming—public debates about issues like climate change or public health can become polarized and harmful. Rudloff warns that failing to appreciate differences in evidentiary support has serious consequences in situations where reasoned assessment is critical.
About this research and contact information
Author: Esther Knemeyer Pereira, University of Würzburg
Source: University of Würzburg
Contact: Esther Knemeyer Pereira – University of Würzburg
Image credit: Jan Philipp Rudloff / University of Würzburg
Original Research: Closed access. “When Truthiness Trumps Truth. Epistemic Beliefs Predict the Accurate Discernment of Fake News” by Jan Philipp Rudloff et al., Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition.
Abstract
When Truthiness Trumps Truth. Epistemic Beliefs Predict the Accurate Discernment of Fake News
The widespread circulation of misinformation and disinformation makes it essential to understand why people fall for fake news. Surprisingly, little research has examined how individuals’ beliefs about knowledge and its formation—epistemic beliefs—shape their vulnerability to false information.
This study proposes a model emphasizing post-truth epistemic beliefs, the Dark Factor of Personality (D), and their combined influence on the ability to discern fake from accurate news. Using a repeated-measures experiment with 668 participants, the authors report that endorsing post-truth epistemic beliefs predicts poorer fake news discernment. The Dark Factor was also associated with reduced discernment, an effect that is explained by its positive relationship with post-truth epistemic beliefs. Results held when considering news that was ideologically congruent or incongruent with participants’ views. The findings suggest that efforts to counter fake news should address how people conceptualize knowledge and the role of evidence.