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When you see an article with tens of thousands of retweets
你在看到一篇成千上万次转发的文章
and an exaggerated headline that you don't agree with, it's easy to blame fake news.
以及你不赞同的夸张标题时，很容易责怪假新闻。
And while it might seem like nothing more than a meme, fake news is a real thing.
虽然这看起来只是一种模仿传递行为，但假新闻真实存在。
Misinformation spreads across the Internet like wildfire, and might even spread more quickly than real news.
错误信息像野火一样在互联网上传播，甚至可能比真新闻传播得更快。
But why? Well, it all comes down to human psychology and how our brains deal with the new information.
但这是为什么呢？这一切都归结于人类的心理以及大脑处理新信息的方式。
Scientists have been studying the cognitive basis of believing false information for a long time.
长期以来，科学家一直在研究人们相信虚假信息的认知基础。
Studies going back to the 1970s have looked at how people view new information
回溯到上世纪70年代，当时的研究着眼于人们如何看待
that goes against things that they've already been told.
与被告知的真相相违背的新信息。
For example, in one 1975 study,
比如，在1975年的一项研究中，
high school and college students were asked to compare two suicide notes and identify the real one.
高中生与大学生都被要求比较两份自杀笔记并鉴别真假。
Most students did okay, they could sometimes identify the real note, but not all the time.
大多数学生都做得不错，他们有时能辨别出真实笔记，但不是一直这样。
But then some students were told that they were either really good or really bad at the task.
但随后，一些学生被告知他们在任务中要么表现得好，要么表现得差。
Later, the researchers revealed that they lied and clarified that everyone just did okay.
后来，研究人员透露自己说了谎，并澄清说每个人都做得很好。
But students still thought that they were better or worse at the task than they actually were,
但是学生们仍认为他们在任务中的表现比实际情况更好或更糟，
the lies stuck with them.
谎言困住了他们
Along with other studies on everything from economic decision-making to medical information,
它连同从经济决策到医疗信息的其他所有研究
all this research shows that humans aren't very logical.
都表明，人类不是很有逻辑。
Even when we're given information that should adjust our beliefs,
即使我们得到了应该调整自身信念的信息，
like learning something is a straight-up lie,
比如学东西明显是谎言，
it's hard for us to let go of how we initially feel about a person or a situation.
但我们很难放弃对一个人或形势的最初感觉。
A possible factor in this is confirmation bias:
导致它的一个可能因素是确认偏误：
we tend to be more convinced by ideas that support our beliefs,
我们更倾向于相信那些支持我们信念的想法，
while opposing information doesn't seem so trustworthy.
而相反的信息似乎并不可信。
This is partially because of what psychologists call motivated reasoning.
这其中的原因有部分是心理学家所说的动机性推理。
Basically, we're motivated to reach conclusions that we want to reach.
我们基本上有动机得出我们想要达成的结论。
Like, if you're diagnosed with a nasty health condition,
比如，如果你被诊断出健康状况严重不良，
you're more motivated to find reasons why the test might be wrong than reasons to agree with it.
你更有动机找出检查可能错误的原因，而不是同意它的理由。
It's better for you if you're not actually sick.
如果你不是真的病了，那就更好了。
On top of that, we tend to believe that our views are correct and other people are wrong,
除此之外，我们倾向于相信我们的观点正确，其他人的错误，
especially if their views disagree with ours.
尤其是他们的观点与我们不符的情况下。
This is called naive realism and makes it hard for us to separate facts and opinions.
这被称为素朴实在论，它使我们很难将事实和观点分开。
These psychological patterns show that our brains can be pretty easily led astray by misinformation.
这些心理模式表明，我们的大脑很容易被错误信息误导。
But this doesn't completely explain how and why fake news goes viral.
但这并不能完全解释假新闻在网上疯狂传播的原因。
Part of the problem might be the fact that, according to a pretty comprehensive survey,
一项相当全面的调查表明，部分问题可能在于
over half of U.S. adults get at least some news from social media.
超过半数的美国成年人都从社交媒体上获得一些新闻。
There's so much information, and it can be hard to tell which sources are credible.
信息那么多，我们很难判断哪些来源是可信的。
Like, a blog post about how coconut water makes you live longer
比如，一篇关于椰子水如何让你活得更久的博客文章
probably isn't fact-checked like a scientific press release, but it might make for a viral tweet.
可能没有像科学新闻发布那样被核实，但它可能成为推特红文。
And social media companies are motivated to promote whatever gets the most traffic and attention,
社交媒体公司的动机是推动任何获得最多流量和关注的事物，
which isn't necessarily what's true.
至于它们的真假就不必要了。
This could also play into the illusory truth effect:
这也会影响到虚幻真理效应：
the idea that we tend to believe information we're exposed to repeatedly, whether or not it's true.
即我们倾向于相信自己经常接触到的信息，不管它是不是真的。
A 2016 study at Yale, shared on the open-access platform SSRN, tested for this effect.
耶鲁大学在2016年将一项研究在开放存取平台社会科学研究网（SSRN）上进行了共享，测试了这种效应。
They exposed participants to both real and fake news headlines
他们让参与者看了真实和虚假的新闻标题，
and then distracted them with demographic questions about themselves.
然后用人口统计学的问题分散他们的注意力。
Later in the same session or after a week, participants were presented with more headlines.
在同一时段或一周后，参与者会得到更多的新闻标题。
And they rated stories they'd seen before as more accurate, even pretty implausible ones.
结果，他们把以前看过的新闻评为更准确、更虚假的新闻。
For example, one of the fake headlines was about a nationwide ban on all TV shows with gay relationships.
例如，一条假新闻标题是关于全国范围内禁止所有与同性恋关系有关的电视节目的。
This effect kind of makes sense, when a whole bunch of people keep talking about the same story,
当一群人不停地谈论同一个故事，
it seems to have more credibility than if one random dude was shouting it on a street corner.
使得它似乎比任意一个家伙在街角大喊大叫更可信时，这种效应似乎有点儿道理。
But these headlines have to be shared for a reason.
但人们分享这些头条新闻是有原因的。
And fake news actually seems to be shared more than real news.
实际上，假新闻似乎比真新闻分享得更多。
A study published in Science in March 2018 looked at how fake news is spread using social media,
2018年3月发表在《科学》(Science)杂志上的一项研究着眼于假新闻如何通过社交媒体传播，
with a massive longitudinal data set following Twitter stories from 2006 through 2017.
这些社交媒体包含2006年到2017年推特上发布的大量纵向数据集，
It included over 125,000 stories shared by around 3 million users,
包括约300万用户分享的超过12.5万个故事，
and found that fake news spreads farther and faster than the truth.
他们发现假新闻比事实传播得更广更快。
This was especially true for political news, compared to other categories like scientific or economic news.
政治新闻与科学或经济新闻等其他类别相比，结果更明显。
These results go along with data from Buzzfeed in 2016,
这些结果与2016年嗡嗡喂（Buzzfeed）的数据一致，
showing that false stories were shared on Facebook more than true stories
这表明脸书上的虚假故事比
during the few months leading up to the presidential election that year.
那一年总统选举前几个月里发生的真实故事分享得更多
And, importantly, this Science study found that fake stories are being shared by real people, not by bot software.
更重要的是，这项科学研究发现，虚假故事是被真人分享的，而不是通过机器人软件。
So it's not as simple as blaming Twitter bots for spreading misinformation.
所以事情不是责备推特机器人传播虚假信息那么简单。
The authors think that the novelty of false headlines could partially explain this trend.
作者认为，虚假新闻标题的新奇性是导致这一趋势的部分原因。
Maybe so many people are retweeting fake news because it's more surprising and interesting than real news.
也许那么多人转发假新闻是因为它们比真新闻更令人惊讶和有趣。
In other psychology studies on viral content,
在关于传染内容的其他心理学研究中，
the stories that people were more likely to share made them more emotionally charged,
人们更愿意分享的故事让它们更有情感，
either positively or negatively. So this idea fits with that pattern.
无论这种故事是积极的还是消极的。所以这一观点符合那个模式。
Now, all of this is pretty...intense.
现在，所有这些都非常…紧张。
So how can we resist the influence of false news if it's everywhere and spreads so easily?
那么，如果虚假新闻无处不在而且容易传播，我们如何才能抵制它们的影响呢？
Well, one idea is to tag headlines with warnings if third-party fact checkers have found them to be dubious.
一个想法是，如果第三方事实核查人员发现新闻头条可疑，就用警告符号标记它们。
In the 2016 Yale study, this significantly reduced the chances that a headline was perceived as accurate,
在2016年耶鲁大学的研究中，这种做法大大降低了标题被认为是准确的几率，
even if participants saw it a couple times.
即使参与者看了几次。
Another tactic is to look more carefully at news sources.
另一种策略是更仔细地观察新闻来源。
It's easy to lean into confirmation bias when you're arguing with your Aunt Sue on Facebook
当你和苏阿姨在脸书上争论时，你很容易倾向于确认偏见，
and looking up sources to back up what you already think.
并且查找资料来源来支持你的观点。
But you can dig deeper into news outlets and authors to understand things
但你可以深入到新闻媒体和作者那里去了解真相，
like what biases they might have or how they did their research, and think about sources more critically.
比如他们有什么偏见或者他们如何做研究，并更批判性地思考信息来源。
And finally, when you see a surprising headline,
最后，当你看到令人惊讶的标题时，
take a second to reflect on it before you click on the "share", " retweet," "show all your friends" buttons.
在点击“分享”“转发”“展示给所有朋友”的按钮前，花点儿时间反思一下。
Shocking stories might seem important to amplify, but they're not necessarily true.
让人震惊的故事要放大似乎很重要，但它们并不一定是真的。
The Internet is a tricky place to navigate these days, I am aware of this,
我知道，现在的互联网是一个操作很棘手的地方，
but there are ways to handle misinformation.
但我们也有处理错误信息的方法。
And if enough people and companies keep working on this kind of transparency and critical thinking,
如果有足够多的人和公司继续致力于这种透明度和批判性思维，
it might help to turn the tide.
就有可能有助于扭转局势。
Thanks for watching this episode of SciShow, which is produced by Complexly,
感谢您收看本期的心理科学秀，它是由Complexly出品的，
a group of people who believe the more we learn about the world, the better we are at being humans.
Complexly是一群相信我们对世界了解得越多就越优秀的人。
If you want to learn even more about how media affects how we think and act,
如果你想了解更多关于媒体如何影响我们的思考和行为的信息，
we would like you to check out our show, Crash Course Media Literacy, at youtube.com/crashcourse.
请在youtube.com/crashcourse上查看我们的节目“Crash Course Media Literacy”。
