COVID Fear Opens You Up to Misinformation

COVID Fear Opens You Up to Misinformation

Fear in response to COVID-19 causes people to think more rigidly and makes it harder for them to recognize misinformation and more likely to spread it, according to new research.


In the binational study conducted during the early months of the pandemic, researchers examined the influence of fear of COVID-19 on several social and cognitive factors among 565 adults living in Italy and the US.


The greater effect coronavirus fears had on an individual, the more likely they were to:


misidentify and spread false or misleading information;
accept unverified information and share it, regardless of accuracy; and
believe untrue existential statements to be profound.

The researchers also analyzed participants’ propensity for polarized or “black-or-white” thinking and xenophobia, among other factors. The study showed that fear of the coronavirus influenced participants to engage in such rigid forms of thinking, and individuals who scored high on the polarization scale were less likely to detect misinformation and more likely to have poor problem-solving and analytical skills.


“Fear is one of the most powerful emotions we have, and while it’s very useful for our survival, it has a significant impact on the ‘infodemic’ we are witnessing worldwide,” says lead author Carola Salvi, a research scientist in the psychiatry and behavioral sciences department at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin.


Participants in the study responded to an extensive online survey conducted during March and April of 2020 at the peak of the initial spread of the virus. In addition to queries about their beliefs and experiences with COVID-19, respondents answered questions about the accuracy of real and fake news articles created by the researchers. ..

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