science

14783 readers

41 users here now

A community to post scientific articles, news, and civil discussion.

rule #1: be kind

<--- rules currently under construction, see current pinned post.

2024-11-11

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

275

Many voters are willing to accept misinformation from political leaders – even when they know it’s factually inaccurate, if they believe the statements evoke a deeper, more important “truth.” (theconversation.com)

submitted 3 weeks ago by solrize to c/science

54 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Many voters are willing to accept misinformation from political leaders – even when they know it’s factually inaccurate. According to our research, voters often recognize when their parties’ claims are not based on objective evidence. Yet they still respond positively, if they believe these inaccurate statements evoke a deeper, more important “truth.”

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] solrize 2 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I haven't read the article or study yet. But I wonder if the observation is one of "probably approximately correct learning" (PAC learning) in action. There's a book of that title by Les Valiant proposing that all biological learning works that way.

[–] acosmichippo 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

to me this is just ex-post-facto justification for motivational reasoning or confirmation bias. people just look for the easiest possible way to resolve cognitive dissonance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Why do you post an article you haven't even read?

[–] VoterFrog 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Because even if it winds up being a bad study, it still evokes a deeper, more important “truth.”

I'm being sarcastic but that's actually what's going on here.

[–] solrize 2 points 3 weeks ago

It looked interesting and that was good enough.