A study published in PLOS Global Public Health shows that people who are highly trusting -- credulous -- or overly mistrustful are more likely to believe fake news, fall for conspiracy theories, and hesitate about vaccines.
Researchers from University College London surveyed over 1,200 adults in the U.K. and found:
- Credulous people struggle to identify fake news and often believe misinformation, especially about COVID-19.
- Mistrustful people are also more likely to believe conspiracy theories and reject vaccines.
- Childhood adversity was linked to difficulty distinguishing real from fake news, influenced by mistrust and credulity.
The study suggests public health efforts should address these tendencies to combat misinformation and improve trust in credible information.
Disintegration of trust
The researchers are University College London said that trust in third parties was key to being able to assess the reliability of information received from third parties.
Disrupting that trust "may undermine healthy functioning that requires rapid, efficient checking and updating of social knowledge and underlie psychological disorders," they said.
The researchers conducted two studies to examine how trust determines the capacity to recognize fake versus real news, and to be more open to conspiracy thinking.
A total of 705 and 502 adults living in the U.K. participated in the two studies and completed online questionnaires. The results revealed that individuals with high credulity were poorer at discriminating between fake and real news, and more likely to perceive fake news as real and affirm false news in relation to COVID-19.
The findings also showed that mistrust and credulity were associated with conspiracy beliefs, both in general and in relation to COVID-19, as well as vaccine hesitancy. The results suggest that effective public health interventions may need to directly tackle and attempt to reverse mistrust and credulity, they said.
"The study sought to explore social-cognitive processes associated with two of the most urgent issues of global public health in the contemporary digital era: the alarming spread of fake news and the breakdown of collective trust in sources of information," the authors of the study said.
You can read the complete study here.