Emotionally Intelligent Individuals Can Identify Fake News

Study finds that emotional intelligence protects against fake news.

Research finds that individuals with high emotional intelligence levels are less likely to be susceptible to false news.

The study involved participants reading a series of news items on social media on issues like health, crime, wealth inequality, and the environment, reporting if they were real or fictitious, and describing the reasons for their answers. The fictitious items featured aspects including emotive language, brief information, and a lack of attributed sources.

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In addition, they also completed a test to determine their emotional intelligence (EQ or emotional quotient) levels and were asked multiple questions on the accuracy of each news item.

Findings revealed that individuals with high scores on EQ tests identified the types of news correctly. A similar correlation was also found between correct identification and educational attainment.

Dr. Tony Anderson, partner in the research, said, "Fake news on social media is now a matter of considerable public and governmental concern. Research on dealing with this issue is still in its infancy, but recent studies have started to focus on the psychological factors which might make some individuals less susceptible to fake news.”

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"We assessed whether people were better able to disregard the emotionally charged content of such items and better equipped to assess the veracity of the information. We found that, while distinguishing real news content from fake was challenging, on average participants were more likely to make the correct decision than not,” he adds.

Anderson states that prior research has shown that people can be trained to enhance their EQ levels.

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People who believed that the fabricated stories were real made comments like - "I have personal experience of this"; "The graph shows it all"; "My kids are in this position, so I completely get this"; and "The commenter on the post has the same thoughts as me."

On the other hand, those who correctly identified fictitious stories made comments like - "There is emotive/condescending language in the blurb"; "Fear-mongering article with no data"; "The source is not an official scientific or governmental source," and "Comes across as more of a rant."

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Source-Medindia