Why People Believe in Fake News: The Psychology Behind It

I knew it was fake news, when  a classmate from my Communication Studies and Theater  class (CST100) Principles of Public Speaking, was so upset about a bill he has read on the news which will take away the peoples' privacy. According to him, he had read in the news of a bill which is yet to be signed by the President, and if it is signed and passed, then there will be no more privacy about anybody living in the United States. Once anybody logs on to any internet site, all the information about the person would be seen by the "Authorities". Internet Service Providers are forbidden to try to protect people's privacy, he added. He went on to tell us to go on to National Public Radio (NPR) news  to read the article.

With the proliferation of fake news in the modern era, it is not far from truth for even the "Learned" to fall victims to believing these fake news. The reason to believing the fake news is not something which has to do with the reader, but it has a psychological reason to it. Though people can read and analyze  issues, it is the psychology of our mindset which makes people to believe in fake news.
 In an article by Parmy Olson, a former Forbe's London bureau chief and now with the Forbes at San Francisco office, gave some reasons why people are made into believing fake news. According to Olson there are some reasons why people still believe in fake news, despite the ability to do critical thinking and able to sift the real for the fake. 
The reasons are linked to the psychological make up of the human species. Some of the reasons given by Olson why people believe in fake news are outlined below.
        First and foremost, human beings have evolutionary tendency to believe what others tell us. Oslon says "we are gullible". It is not a mistake to believe in what somebody tells us even if it is falls because you are made to believe it. In other words, it is biological make up, which is linked to the psyche.
    Secondly, Oslon says humans have a quick decision making system, and this system is not rational. We also have one that is slow and deliberate system. The quick decision-making system-the irrational system explains why people take decision and later rescind, when they sit down and then reason. The quick decision making system is what is applied when fake news are read. The mind believes it, without taking it into account whether it is fake or not.
  Also, the human brain engages in belief perseverance, according to Olson. This she explained as a situation when the brain holds on to an idea and becomes very difficult to dislodge that idea. Even when new evidence or idea comes in, it still clings or holds on to the old one. This in effect makes people to hold on to ideas read previously and taken even the evidence comes to nullify the previous news as fake. This idea of Olson can be supported by an article by Micheal H. Pasek, A National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. According to Pasek, once information is given, it is very difficult to retract even if readers become aware that the information is false. In effect, their attitude and the influence of the fake news on them is difficult to be changed.
   Finally, the is confirmation bias of the brain. The brain selectively filters and attends to what it original knows and believes in. To explain this, the brain believes in what it wants to believe in, and that might be false. Once the mind is set to believe in something, that is what it will believe in. That is somewhat related to the idea of belief perseverance of the brain. Unlike the belief perseverance, the confirmation bias is done "selectively" by the brain.
  Not one person is a victim to believing in fake news. It is the order of the day. Even highly academically inclined people fall as prey. In order to curb the tendency of people falling prey to believing fake news, the society has to be aware of the clues of spotting the "real from the fake". This can be achieved by teaching people to ask  credibility questions like: who wrote the article or what is the source of the article, what evidence is there to support it, and also encourage people to increase their critical thinking skills. Olson's article mentioned teaching critical thinking skills to 12 and 16 year olds, which will help them carry with them into adulthood.
Pasek suggests journalists should fact-check news and articles before publication since they are the first source of information.