A recent study conducted by Northwestern University and Princeton University has highlighted the role of moral outrage in the spread of misinformation. The research indicates that misinformation, whether politically motivated or not, tends to evoke moral outrage more frequently than factual information. This emotional response can lead individuals to overlook warning signs and share content without fully engaging with it.
William Brady, co-lead author of the study and assistant professor at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, stated, “When misinformation evokes outrage, people are significantly more likely to share the article without actually clicking into it and reading it.” He emphasized that this impulsive reaction is particularly prevalent when political news triggers an outraged state.
The findings will be published in the journal Science on November 28. The study examined how certain misinformation campaigns exploit Americans' deeply held beliefs. One such campaign by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) aimed to sow discord during the 2016 and 2020 U.S. political seasons.
Killian McLoughlin, a co-lead author from Princeton University, noted that many links were designed to provoke outrage. An example included an ad targeting Republicans with inflammatory language about immigrants.
From January 2017 to July 2017, IRA-related articles generated thousands of links and tweets on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. This trend continued from August 2020 to February 2021 with increased activity.
McLoughlin remarked on how widely shared misinformation often elicits strong emotions: “Our research shows that a lot of the misinformation that spreads most widely is specifically the kind of information that is eliciting outrage.”
Brady suggested reevaluating current approaches to combating misinformation by considering its potential for inducing outrage. He argued for social media moderation teams to assess content based on its ability to provoke such reactions.
The researchers also explored why general negativity bias does not fully account for their findings. Brady explained that "outrage seems to be special," linking it directly to political conflict and division within information ecosystems.
He further pointed out how engagement metrics like likes and shares encourage users to produce more outrage-inducing content over time: “Misinformation exploits our attraction to outrage — hitchhiking on our natural tendency to share it.”
Finally, researchers aim to understand better how social media algorithms contribute to spreading toxic content alongside human psychological biases. Brady concluded by acknowledging both factors' roles in creating environments dominated by outrageous material: “The truth is that both algorithms and human psychology are to blame.”
The study titled "Misinformation exploits outrage to spread online" includes contributions from other scholars such as Ben Kaiser and M.J. Crockett from Princeton University; Aden Goolsbee from Yale University; and Kate Klonick from St. John’s University.