ABSTRACT
For us researcher-educators, misinformation is troubling. In the United States, for example, we feel distressed when public understandings diverge from reality – when voters believe, contrary to evidence, that crime is rising, that new immigrants are often criminals, and that climate change is a hoax.
Some misinformation is intentional fake news. But social-cognitive dynamics also feed gullibility. There is persuasive power to mere repetition, the availability heuristic, confirmation bias, self-justification, statistical illiteracy, group polarization, and overconfidence. And there is counteracting, truth-supportive power to evidence-based scientific scrutiny, education into critical thinking, and the religious mandate for humility.
