Chances are, you’re not as open-minded as you think

Do you think of yourself as open-minded? For a 2017 study, scientists asked 2,400 well-educated adults to consider arguments on politically controversial issues — same-sex marriage, gun control, marijuana legalization — that ran counter to their beliefs. Both liberals and conservatives, they found, were similarly adamant about avoiding contrary opinions. […] Read more »

The psychological phenomenon that blinds Trump supporters to his racism

… Cognitive dissonance, first described by the psychologist Leon Festinger in the late 1950s, occurs when conflict emerges between what people want to believe and the reality that threatens those beliefs. The human mind does not like such inconsistencies: They set off alarms that spur the mind to alter some […] Read more »

In the war against misinformation, fact-checking works. Big Tech needs to do more of it

Amid a continued public outcry over the influence of fake news and misinformation, tech companies are scrambling to generate effective solutions. … Our new research shows that fact-checking prevents misinformation from shaping our thoughts — even our automatic and uncontrollable perceptions. When fact-checking calls out what isn’t credible, much of […] Read more »