According to the European Commission (2018), 68% of Europeans report encountering fake news at least once a week. Similarly, a survey in which 755 people took part revealed that participants who are media consumers from Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa detect that they are fairly exposed to “fake news” regularly. Another aspect of the findings, when compared with the US, shows that Africans shared “fake news” with a much higher frequency than Americans do, with 38% of Kenyans, 28% Nigerians and 35% South Africans agreeing to have shared stories which were discovered to be made up. Meanwhile, only 16% did so in the US. This shows the level at which people are exposed to false information daily.
Nowadays, people receive controversial content on their phones and computers daily. Meanwhile, the digital age has made sharing information easier than ever before. Although spreading false and misleading information is an age-old phenomenon, the impact can cause people to experience information disorder syndrome. Aside from that, wrong and deceptive information can mislead people when making decisions in any aspect of their lives. According to Cyabra, people fall for fake news because of psychological factors, including Confirmation Bias, Belief Perseverance, Bandwagon Effect, and Dunning-Kruger Effect, all of which will be discussed further in the following paragraphs.
Cognitive Biases and Their Role in Information Disorder
In the early 1970s, cognitive bias was introduced by Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman. The term ‘cognitive bias’ describes systematic, yet often erroneous, patterns in individuals’ responses to problems involving judgment and decision-making.
Confirmation Bias
Confirmation Bias is defined as “the tendency to seek out or interpret information in a way that aligns with one’s preexisting beliefs” (Britannica). Confirmation Bias is one of the challenges that makes people share and believe false information. This works with the already known beliefs people hold before coming across this false information. Confirmation bias leads people to favour information that supports their assumptions, preconceptions, or hypotheses, regardless of whether they are objectively true or not. In the 1960s, a cognitive psychologist, Peter Wason, conducted some experiments named Wason’s rule discovery task. He showed that people seek information that conforms to their existing beliefs. A typical example of confirmation bias is the experience of people during presidential elections, individuals often seek out information that portrays their preferred candidate positively while ignoring or dismissing information that casts them in a negative light.
Bandwagon Effect
The idea of the bandwagon effect was popularised by American sociologist Herbert Blumer in the 1940s. It is a psychological condition whereby people do something as a result of other people doing the same thing without considering their own beliefs. The Bandwagon Effect happens as a sociological and psychological factor. This stems from the fact that people tend to be social and relate with others based on a phenomenon and to belong to show their social identity. For instance, a false post will be shared repeatedly by people with nuances of the bandwagon effect without minding the source and how genuine it is. Bandwagon effect also happens as a result of heuristics and illusory truth effects. According to Investopedia, the human brain uses shortcuts known as heuristics to make efficient decisions. Most times, one of the shortcuts is to look at what other people are doing. When people follow a trend repeatedly in making a decision, the brain can assume that it is the right decision to make. Illusory truth effects happen through repetition. Most people believe a claim to be true if they have been exposed to it several times. In the 2023 election in Nigeria, it was observed in a report by Vanguard that voters cast their ballots for state legislative candidates based on a bandwagon effect driven by their political party preferences and their choices for gubernatorial positions.
Belief Perseverance
Belief Perseverance is the tendency for individuals to maintain a belief even when presented with evidence that contradicts it. This can contribute to the spread of misinformation, causing people to cling to opinions based on false information, even after it has been debunked. For instance, a viral video that circulates claims that a specific home remedy can cure COVID-19. Even after health organisations and experts publicly debunk the claim and show scientific proof that the remedy is ineffective (or even dangerous), many people continue to believe in and share the video, insisting the remedy works because “they saw it online” or “it worked for someone they know.”
Dunning-Kruger Effect.
The term Dunning-Kruger Effect was introduced in 1999 by Cornell psychologists David Dunning and Justin Kruger. The Dunning-Kruger Effect is a cognitive bias where individuals overestimate their competence in a specific domain. It shows that people who overestimate their proficiency tend to share more misleading content. When flipping through the news on social media, people with little or no knowledge make contributions as an expert, which they are not. With Dunning-Kruger in action, it is easier to make wrong notions, which can lead to misinformation. An example of the Dunning-Kruger effect is that followers of rival political parties frequently display high confidence in their understanding of government policies, despite having only a limited grasp of the actual details.
Emotional Triggers and the Spread of Viral Content
It is essential to know what makes content go viral. The answer lies in the psychology of human behaviour. It has to do with human emotion and how cognitive biases interact with digital consumption. Most times, people are susceptible to false information that appeals to their emotions, such as fear and outrage. Research has shown that content is likely to go viral if it creates arousal in people’s emotions.
Why do people share content online?
Content sharing has become a central part of how people communicate, express themselves, and stay connected. There are certain reasons which make people share information online. While some people share to gain a form of status, others do it to prevent their relatives from harm. The following are some of the reasons why people share content online.
Status
People share content to attain a specific status in society. To some people, it is a way of belonging to a certain social group, which gives them prestige. On social media, people fondly share the achievements of their friends to show that they are somewhat attached to such people. For instance, while strolling through the internet, Facebook to be precise, toward the end of January 2025, I saw a post by the World Trade Organisation announcing their 2025 Young Professionals. To my surprise, I saw a friend of mine whom we had studied together for a master’s. Out of excitement, I shared the post with a caption that showed I had my friend as one of the people shared in the picture by WTO. This is the typical example of how status can trigger people to share content online.
Social currency
Social currency is the value people gain from sharing information that enhances their image or status within a group. When people share content that makes them appear knowledgeable, funny, or caring, they feel a social reward such as validation, approval, or attention. The excitement derived from the social validation can act as a cognitive bias as it allows people to prioritise shareability over reliability, ignores fact-checking and also overrides critical thinking. When social approval takes priority, social currency can bias our thinking and weaken rational decision-making. It drives people to circulate misleading or false content for personal gain, contributing to the broader challenge of combating misinformation in the digital age.
Lending a Hand of Support
Some people share posts with other people with the intention that the post will be beneficial to the people they share it with. This happens when people receive a discount on a product they purchase or a service they enjoy. To ensure that they don’t benefit from it alone, they will be triggered to share such content. This also happens with broadcast messages on WhatsApp with instructions to take action on something or another.
Protection
The act of protecting people from a certain form of harm makes people forward content to their contacts or relatives. Another thing that can trigger people to share content is fear. This is associated with human psychology. When we perceive danger, our brains instinctively become more alert. For instance, out of the fear of Ebola, some Nigerians immunised themselves against the deadly virus by drinking and bathing with salt water. Messages were all over BlackBerry Messenger and WhatsApp with short messages instructing people to use salt and water, which was not a verified cure for the virus. Preventing people from a sort of threat, such as financial problems, can be why people share.
Entertainment
Entertainment stirs emotions and helps people feel connected. People love to share content that makes them laugh, smile, or feel good because it helps them bond with others. Sharing entertaining content like memes, funny videos, music clips, or viral challenges allows users to express their personality, lighten the mood, and engage with their friends or followers in a relatable, fun way. This excitement mostly triggered people to share content online.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the psychology of information disorder reveals how individuals’ cognitive biases, emotional triggers, and social motivations make them susceptible to sharing viral content, often without fully evaluating its accuracy. The prevalence of cognitive biases like confirmation bias, belief perseverance, and the bandwagon effect all contribute to the spread of misinformation, especially when emotional appeal is involved. As people interact with content that aligns with their existing beliefs or evokes strong emotional reactions, they become more likely to share it, often prioritising social status or protection over the content’s reliability.
