The Psychology Behind Fake News

The statement of “fake news” has always been a topic that people have been debating over. This topic has now been streamlined through numerous amounts of media following the election to determine the 45th President of the United States. The election had been nothing to me but several months of what it seems to be a pile of garbage set on fire uncontrollably. There’s at least one good thing I’ve gotten from this event, and it’s that I’ve gained an enormous amount of interest to what I’m exposed to from news. The article I chose, “The Psychology behind Fake News,” explains through the insight of Adam Waytz, written by Drew Calvert, on how the problem is not the media, but how people tend to not sway their views despite even seeing evidence.
However to my surprise, Calvert says that “We should focus not on the role of social media, but on the role of social psychology.” The people’s bias are the issues that affect our entire fake news situation. It’s okay if you have a view that pertains to what you see, but it becomes a problem if said person is too naïve to change a view because it closes in on the fact that they’re wrong. People tend to only accept the news or articles that reflect or confirm their own views that they had before then. It creates a situation where even when presented with factual evidence, a person would still stick to their views to the end. It’s like what Waytz states “we call too many things ‘fake news’ simply because it doesn’t support our own view of reality.” Even though I could agree that many don’t tend look into information they’re provided, I didn’t like how Calvert cites the Washington Post where they eventually cite the Public Affairs Research where they stated a certain percent of people don’t look deep enough into the information they receive. It’s best to immediately cite the direct group. It’s good that Calvert and Waytz never tell you that these are the solutions, but states that there are possible
Over time, motivated reasoning can lead to a false social consensus.” To me I’ve seen that happen, not only as I look at the public reactions to both candidates as something scandalous leaks out, but in my own family as well. I tend to get on the bad side of my mother when she gets mad over something that comes out from a candidate and I simply tell her calm down when she attempts to talk to other about what she heard. Because I had a real life experience with this type attitude in an almost every week level. You can look at both sides of the spectrum when you open Twitter and scroll through every comment with one of the candidates’ names in them. Even when something was debunked or recently sent out to the public, the public eats it up and immediately issues their own judgment on the issue for all to