Why Fake News Targeted Trump Supporters

[Quixote1818]

One of the few comforts liberals had in the aftermath of the election was the anecdotal reporting that fake-news purveyors found it easier to get conservatives to believe their baloney.

As one such fake-news entrepreneur, responsible for articles with headlines like, “FBI Agent Suspected in Hillary Email Leaks Found Dead in Apparent Murder-Suicide,” told NPR: "We’ve tried to do [fake news with] liberals. It just has never worked, it never takes off. You'll get debunked within the first two comments and then the whole thing just kind of fizzles out."

No doubt this served as a signal, to some, that if fake news works better on Trump supporters, it must be because liberals are smarter than conservatives. “I can safely binge-drink the next four years away,” some liberals might have thought, “since I have all these extra brain cells to burn.”

Well, not quite. According to a study slated to be published in the journal Psychological Science, it might be true that conservatives are more likely to fall for false, threatening-seeming information, but it’s not because they’re dumb. It’s because they’re hyper-attuned to hazards in their world. If they spot a sign of danger, they figure trusting it is better than ignoring it.

More:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/02/why-fake-news-targeted-trump-supporters/515433/

Similar results to this study:

[ProudLib72]

1. Sorry, I call total BS

it’s not because they’re dumb. It’s because they’re hyper-attuned to hazards in their world. If they spot a sign of danger, they figure trusting it is better than ignoring it.

So a conservative sees tRump, a very very very dangerous thing and do not get out of the way?

[Quixote1818]

2. Good point. I question their methodology and lets be honest as liberals sometimes fall

for fake news too but I can honestly say I don't think we fall for it as much.

[ProudLib72]

4. Hyper sensitive to percieved threats

is called delusional and paranoid. It's not the positive thing they make it out to be. False news feeds into that paranoia. Even if the news is proven false very quickly, the subject is already thinking irrationally, on edge and ready to accept the next piece of news that comes along.

And, no, I am not a psychologist. I just have some experience with this kind of thinking.

[Quixote1818]

3. Dupe

Doubled up for some reason

[GReedDiamond]

5. "...conservatives...(are) hyper-attuned to hazards in their world. If they spot a sign of danger,..

...they figure trusting it is better than ignoring it."

So, in other words, they're paranoid and filled with overwhelming fear of the scary terraists, libtards, tree huggers, furriners, coloreds, homos, non-xtians, nasty wimmen, and so on.

[paulkienitz]

6. That's a nice way to draw the distinction... but

But not true. It might be what separates liberaks from conservatives on one level, but it's certainly not what separates liberals from Trump voters. The defining trait of Trump voters is gullibility. This is the sole quality which makes it possible to vote for someone who blatantly and transparently lies all the time about every single topic.

[oberliner]

7. Fake news works on liberals, too

To be fair.