Module 3: Emotional Appeal
Emotional appeal: when someone uses strong, emotional words or content to make you feel
a certain way—like scared, angry, or sympathetic—with the goal of influencing what you
believe or how you act, without giving you solid facts or logical reasons.
● Exploits our psychological vulnerabilities to sway opinions or spread falsehoods,
often leading to the rapid dissemination of misleading information.
● It bypasses rational analysis and critical thinking, making it a powerful tool in
spreading misinformation.
Emotional appeal is highly effective in spreading both true and false information because it
connects directly with our emotions. This emotional connection makes us more likely to
believe and share the information, even if it's not based on facts.
In a study where participants were asked to rate the accuracy of political headlines (real or
fake) (2 groups: judge with reasoning skills or emotions) the emotionally primed group did a
worse job at distinguishing between real or fake.
When misinformation taps into negative emotions: like anger or fear, especially towards
groups we are biased against, we are more prone to believe it. Misinformation that makes
you feel good=accepted more easily.
Case study: The Plandemic Video
→ Film that spread during COVID 19 pandemic that make fake but influential claims
→ 2 main reasons for its spread:
- Shock factor: The film presented novel and emotional “shock” content that tapped
into preexisting anti-vaccination attitudes and fears.
- Viral Boost: The campaign herded a densely connected network of smaller
communities with limited reach to suddenly mass-share the video, which allowed the
conspiracy theory to jump quickly across social media platforms with the aid of online
influencers.
Emotional appeal not only affects how likely we are to believe in misinformation, but also
impacts the spread of misinformation. It's especially powerful on social media, where
emotions can run high and information spreads quickly.
Awareness: important way to protect yourself against misinformation (if you feel a strong
way after reading/watching something that claims to be true could be a sign it is untrue) →
when emotional less able to think rationally/critically
Module 4: Cognitive Skills, Education, and Experience
Life experience, like education level and age, along with our cognitive abilities can strongly
impact the way we interact with misinformation.
A major factor that affects a person's susceptibility to misinformation: the ability to
understand complex, abstract concepts
Higher education + better processing of abstract information less likely to believe
misinformation
Metacognition: thinking about one’s own thinking
Those who tend to reflect on what they know = more likely to be better at discerning between
fact and misinformation
However, excessive confidence in one’s ability to spot misinformation can actually increase a
person’s likelihood of believing it.
Age is another factor in who will believe misinformation.
Older people→ are better at identifying misinformation than young adults, but still share it
more than younger generations
Normal psychological phenomena like knowledge neglect and illusory truth can trick our
brains into believing misinformation, even when we’ve learned the correct information in the
past.
Knowledge neglect: a psychological phenomenon in which people often have relevant
information in memory, but they fail to retrieve and use it under new conditions.
- Greater insight about the plausibility of a particular claim helps people recognize
errors in what they are reading and subject knowledge also helps
Illusory truth: the psychological phenomenon where repeated information is thought to be
truer.
*This is what it’s important to stop misinformation spread early, before people are exposed
multiple times
Strategies to help decrease the impact of misinformation
Prebunking: using techniques to help people build resilience to misinformation in advance
of encountering it, should be the first line of defence.
Method commonly used to prebunk misinformation: psychological inoculation
- exposure to a weak version of an argument builds psychological resistance against
future unwanted persuasion.
Debunking: the process of exposing and refuting false information, usually by making a
correction or presenting evidence that proves the information false.
An effective way to reduce belief and the spread of misinformation. Research shows that
debunking misinformation is generally effective across ages and cultures.
Corrections to false information should be shown alongside the original false information so
people can remember and understand the truth better.
Debunking= most effective when it comes from trusted sources, provides sufficient detail
about why the claim is false, and offers guidance on what is true instead. Because the
effectiveness of debunking fades over time, it should be repeated through trusted channels
and evidence-based methods.