Personal values make people susceptible to spreading fake news: study
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A new study suggests that many social media users might unknowingly spread fake news simply because the content resonates with their personal values.
Published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, the research highlights how individual moral beliefs influence the willingness to share information—true or false—online.
Led by Suhaib Abdurahman from the University of Southern California, the study examined how two types of moral values—individualising values (like care and fairness, typically held by liberals) and binding values (such as loyalty, patriotism, and respect for authority, often associated with conservatives)—affect what people share.
To test this, the researchers crafted fake social media posts linked to news articles. Some of the articles contained misinformation, and each post was framed using either individualising, binding, or neutral language. Participants were then asked whether they would share these posts.
The key finding? People were significantly more likely to share content when its moral framing matched their own values. And notably, this alignment made them even more prone to share false information.
“This suggests that a match between personal values and the message's framing can override critical evaluation, leading to the dissemination of false information,” the study notes.
Interestingly, the study also discovered that this behavior wasn’t the result of more thought or deliberation. Users didn’t think harder about posts that reflected their values—they were just more likely to hit "share."
To test these insights in a real-world setting, researchers analysed Twitter activity.
By identifying users as liberal or conservative based on who they followed, and applying machine learning to detect the types of values in shared content, they found similar patterns. Content that aligned with users’ values was more likely to be shared—regardless of whether it was accurate.
The findings offer a compelling explanation for how misinformation gains traction online. Value-based resonance may be a more powerful driver of online sharing behavior than the truthfulness of the content itself.