The recent prevalence of ‘fake news’ may make it seem like misinformation is a relatively modern invention. However, wild claims, falsehoods and conspiracy theories have been part of human culture for about as long as it’s existed.
This is because misinformation originates with and is spread by other people, and it often has a really strong influence.
If you’ve ever had to communicate an important but complex issue to a general audience, you’ll be well aware that it can be frustrating.
You may have terabytes of the most reliable data, meticulously worked-out rebuttals to any possible argument, the most elegant PowerPoint slides and the full backing of every renowned expert in the relevant field.
And yet, you can still be less persuasive than someone whose entire argument is: “A guy I met down the pub told me something different”.
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The source of this revered information isn’t always some random stranger in a pub, obviously. Sometimes it’s a friend, or a friend of a friend, or a distant cousin. It may even come from a series of ever more tenuous connections (e.g. “My mother’s neighbour’s stepson’s boss’s milkman said…”)
In fairness, the individual source of the information will (supposedly) have some relevant experience or insight. Say you’re discussing the safety of vaccines and end up arguing with someone whose cousin’s roommate “works for a pharmacist”.
In a perfectly sensible, logical world, someone who knows someone who is loosely affiliated with a vaguely connected field or industry wouldn’t carry the same clout as actual data or the leading experts in the field.
But humans aren’t perfectly sensible, logical creatures.
For all our impressive cognitive powers, how we see the world, and the information we latch onto and retain, are heavily shaped by the instinctive, subconscious and emotional processes that make up much of our brain.
And if there’s one thing that engages these subconscious, emotional processes, it’s our fellow humans.
How our brains prefer to get information
While our brains can and will take in and retain abstract information and raw data, they don’t really like to. The ability to think rationally and analytically is a relatively recent addition to our suite of mental abilities (in the evolutionary sense). And it costs our brains a lot of energy and effort.
The more established, fundamental systems in our brain, which shape memory and learning, are very reliant on emotion. The more emotionally stimulating something is, the easier it is to retain and remember, particularly compared to objective data and facts.
That’s why we can spend months revising the material for a crucial exam, but struggle to remember any of it once we’ve passed. Meanwhile, the humiliating time we slipped and landed on our backside in the school dinner queue? That memory endures until our dying day. Because it’s very emotional.
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Other people play a significant role in our emotional experiences. Logically, the emotions of guilt or embarrassment can’t occur if nobody else is involved in the events. And we’ve evolved very sophisticated neurological systems for recognising and sharing the emotions of others, aka empathy.
It goes beyond just the emotional connection. So much of our brains are dedicated to gleaning information from other people. We have dedicated regions for processing faces, language, speech and more. Indeed, some argue that the reason we evolved language at all is so we could gossip.
The point is, for most of our evolutionary history, our primary source of information was other people. And our brains have developed over time to recognise and facilitate this.
Putting on a friendly face
The importance of other people when it comes to the information we absorb is visible everywhere you look.
For instance, it would be much easier, cheaper and more practical to share important information, like the latest news, with simple words on a screen. Especially in the earlier days of technology. But even so, every culture you can think of uses newsreaders. To give a human face, a human connection, to otherwise abstract, intangible information.
That’s why we need teachers and lecturers, rather than just giving students a load of relevant textbooks to read. And that’s why stories and novels focus on specific individuals and aren’t just lists of fantastical events that occurred.
It's also (partly) why so many of us say, “At last, a human being!” after spending long periods dealing with an automated calling system.
And it’s why one individual with a podcast or Instagram account can have as much clout and influence as a major news network or prestigious university. Or even more.
Ultimately, we’ve evolved to accept information more readily when it’s provided by another person. They help us process, contextualise and relate to the abstract, the intangible. Whether the information we get from others is reliable or even plausible doesn’t seem to matter. Unfortunately.
The more hardcore sceptic type will often say, “Facts don’t care about your feelings”. Which is correct. But feelings don’t necessarily care about facts either. And ultimately, feelings have more of a say in what we think and do.
And that’s why someone down the pub can seem more believable than a whole archive of published research.
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