We are often surrounded by bogus claims about other people—especially in the context of political elections. But why do we sometimes believe blatant misinformation? A new study from the University of Arizona suggests that our gullibility can be triggered by subtle reminders of how we are different from the person in question.
During the months before and after the 2008 presidential election, psychologist Spee Kosloff and his colleagues asked predominantly white, non-Muslim students to evaluate smears about both candidates. They found that cues about social differences, such as age or race, were enough to get many participants to buy into false allegations against a candidate. Students who were undecided about which candidate to support, for example, when asked to report their own race on a questionnaire, increased their belief that Barack Obama was Muslim from 38 to 58 percent. Similarly, reminding students about their own age helped to make them believe that John McCain was senile. Overall, thinking about differences in social categories increased students’ acceptance of smear-campaign misinformation by 24 percent, Kosloff says.
Scientists have long known that we tend to have a preference for people of our own social category, “an us-versus-them sort of mentality,” Kosloff says. But he adds that he was surprised by the magnitude of this effect in his experiments. He plans to use upcoming elections to look at ways to counter the effect, for example, by reminding people of similarities they have with a candidate. To wit, “I am an American; he is an American. Would that reminder attenuate people’s willingness to believe that [Obama] is Muslim?” Kosloff asks.
This article was originally published with the title Why Smear Campaigns Work.
Rights & Permissions
See what we're tweeting about
4 Comments
Add CommentI still think McCain is senile and Bush, Jr. has the IQ of a tenth-grader; Obama is more Muslim than Christian, and most Americans hate anything that is not like them...the new Speaker of the House hates America and all Americans and will work hard to continue our downfall.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think I would make a good politician and voter.
So, what are you saying J.D.? You're more like Bush?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you just betrayed yourself to the premise of the article; you've certainly made it clear who your different from. Keep smearing.
And here I just thought Birthers and Truthers were crazy ideologues.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI used to get all sorts of this type of silly "they isn't us!!!" emails and rumors from friends and family members. I found that when I pointed out the basic flaws in these idiotic messages in mass to everyone involved in the conversation combined with a rather contemptuous analysis of people that forward this kind of garbage and a listing of the failings of the alternatives including references to prove my points, I stopped getting them. I particularly like the emails that include several clusters of email addresses from multiple forwards. That way I could humiliate gossip mongers I'd never even heard of before. I encourage this response to all political emails and political social media communication.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this