Life Kit - How to talk to your loved ones about misinformation

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

Misinformation and disinformation undermine democracy by making it hard for people to make informed choices. It's also used to divide communities, scapegoat vulnerable populations and erode trust. Research shows people trust information more when it comes from sources or cultural contexts they're familiar with. This election season, help counter misinformation in your community by having conversations with your friends and family.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Life Kit from NPR. Hey, everybody. It's Marielle. When was the last time you tried to talk to a friend or a family member about something they said about the world that you knew to be factually inaccurate? In other words, misinformation. How did it go? If not so well, don't feel bad. These conversations are tough. I think if someone really cares about the piece of misinformation

and if they're like deeply embedded into either some kind of conspiratorial narrative or if it really aligns with their identity, it can be quite challenging. That's Professor Bryony Swire-Thompson. She's the director of the Psychology of Misinformation Lab at Northeastern University. And she says we are all vulnerable to misinformation. Yeah, you too. We just don't have the time, the cognitive resources, or even the motivation to literally fact check every piece of information that comes our way. But some good news. On the whole, misinformation can be really easy to correct. Today on Life Kit, how to talk about misinformation with the people you love.

This episode isn't about how to reach people who are deeply enmeshed in a web of conspiracy theories. That requires a different set of tools. Instead, we'll equip you with strategies to help you effectively fact check false statements. The big picture idea here is to start from a place of connection, not correction. NPR's Audrey Nguyen is a producer covering democracy and disinformation. She's going to take it from here. How do we decide if it's even worth trying to have a conversation about misinformation in the first place? Here's Professor Bryony Swire-Thompson again with some questions you can ask yourself. How well do you know the other individual?

How much does it matter to you that you don't see eye to eye on a topic? She says if it's just a matter of not seeing eye to eye about an issue, it's okay to opt out in an effort to preserve the relationship. But you might choose, say, a different strategy, maybe tackle it a bit more head-on if you think it will cause harm. Before we dive into how to have these conversations, I want to acknowledge a couple things. First, these conversations are hard, especially if you're starting from a place of judgment. Instead, try leading with compassion, love, and empathy. Second, the terms mis- and disinformation can provoke some big feelings.

For definitions, we'll go with Merriam-Webster's. Misinformation refers to incorrect or misleading information, and disinformation refers to false information deliberately and often covertly spread in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth. Mis- and disinformation does trigger a sort of reaction and usually distaste when that comes up because it becomes a politicized term. That's Sarah Nguyen. They're a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington who studies how people share information with each other. She leads workshops for the Vietnamese community in the Seattle area about how to address problematic information and deepfakes. When she's tackling misinformation and her community,

she actually tries to avoid using the term altogether. Instead, they opt for rumors or misleading content. The idea here is to figure out how your friend or family member feels about the piece of information you've identified as false. Do they think this is actually trustworthy because of different factors? Professor Rachel Kuo is the research facilitator of the Asian American Disinformation Table. She brings us our first takeaway. Take time to understand why your loved one believes the misleading content. Building these bridges of understanding I think also helps people learn and grow on either side of the conversation. Don't just talk at your loved one. Be in conversation with them. Recognize that

they've got a whole life's worth of experiences that affects how they engage with whatever they read online, hear on the news, get via text, etc. What people consider mis- and disinformation can be really different. So for example, some of the things that I might push as harmful or problematic narratives, other people might not see it that way. So let's say your mom or your cousin keeps repeating a statement you know to be incorrect. As you're trying to figure out

why your loved one believes something untrue, Rachel recommends starting by getting to know them better as a person. You can do that, for instance, by asking them about their life. So often people's memories, right, like really shape the ways that they engage in current ways with political systems and their media environments. And I think it is important to actually engage those different histories and to begin to talk through why it is that people believe or come to believe the things that they do.

Try asking them about their childhood. What are some things they remember? Who were they close with growing up? What do they remember about migrating to the United States, if they did? And really kind of teasing out those moments and to not focus, right, on the kind of intervention right away. I want to underscore that last part. We're starting from a place of connection, not correction. Understanding their past will help you understand how they engage with the present. And then that template begins to build

up into kind of thinking about like, okay, what are some of the things that you've engaged in? Recently, have you voted, for example? Or have you been vaccinated? Like, why or why not? Let's say your cousin has had terrible experiences with doctors. The doctors didn't believe her when she talked about her symptoms and it took a third, fourth, or fifth option to finally get a correct diagnosis. That might make your cousin hesitant to trust doctors or health professionals in general. Keep stuff like that in mind when you talk. Remember, this work takes compassion. You can break up these conversations over time, or if you're feeling it out and you think your loved one would be receptive to pivoting towards current events, you can try having the combo in one go. To make the pivot towards discussing misinformation, you can start talking about

where the both of you get your information and why you find those sources to be trustworthy. That's our second takeaway. Bryony has found these types of discussions to be quite effective in her research. So instead of saying here's the misinformation, it is false. You can say what is the evidence for both the individual who believes in the misinformation and for your side. And you can like have a discussion about really who you're both trusting and why. By also discussing where you get your information and explaining why you find those sources trustworthy, you're laying the groundwork for reciprocal understanding. That helps build trust.

A quick thing to note here, psychology research examining how to effectively correct misinformation occurs in a very controlled experimental setting. Briney notes there haven't really been studies that take into account more complex social dynamics, like a family setting. That being said, we can still take learnings from peer-reviewed studies and try applying them to our conversations with the people we care about. In one study, Briney and her colleagues found highlighting a source's low expertise worked well to discredit dubious health claims. It was far more effective than just corrupting the misinformation. To point out how unqualified a source is, you can highlight the source's lack of skills, professional training, relevant educational background, etc.

You can also point out any complex of interest they might have. This is also a good time for you to check your source's qualifications. Remember, we're all vulnerable to misinformation. There's always a chance you've misremembered or misinterpreted something. And if you have, just own it. Returning to the idea of building trust with the person that you're talking to, it's a slow, ongoing process that'll take time. I mean, it could take years. One thing you can try

now though identify things you'll have in common. Finding points where you do agree is always going to be helpful. Bryony says that can also help maintain goodwill. Being mindful of maintaining goodwill is helpful because as Rachel points out so much of what also happens with disinformation is that it introduces different frictions and tensions in our relationships. And those frictions and tensions can make it difficult to talk across differences. That brings us to takeaway three. Realize you're not here to change anyone's core beliefs. You're simply trying to address a piece of information that is not

correct. Again, we're not talking about helping someone untangle themselves from a web of conspiracy theories. That requires a different approach that's outside the scope of this episode. Here's Sarah again. I'm not trying to change someone inherently. It is more about how can we build this coexisting trust with each other and continue these types of conversations in a sustainable and healthy way. The goal here is to keep the conversation going. Making someone feel like there's something wrong with their worldview is just going to cause them to shut down. Now, conversations can get tricky when you're discussing politics.

Bryony has researched misleading political statements. So for political misinformation, we found that correcting misinformation didn't make much difference in terms of how much they trusted that source in the future or how much they were going to vote for that political candidate. When it comes to information about health, however, we found that highlighting that a source had spread a lot of misinformation in the past often did change people's perspectives of how trustworthy the source is. One possible reason for that is people tend to think healthcare providers should be truthful, while politicians are expected to stretch the truth, at least sometimes. So instead of trying to convince your uncle or auntie to not vote for a particular candidate, instead, try discussing a piece of misleading or false information the candidate or their party has circulated.

You might think keeping that correction short and sweet is the move, but actually... Providing a good amount of detail for why something is wrong is more effective. That brings us to takeaway four. When you do attempt to correct misleading information, provide a detailed fact check. So that's one of the best methods that we know to correct misinformation is by not just saying this piece of misinformation is false, but providing what we call a factual alternative. So saying what is actually true.

So say, for example, your friend expresses concern about the integrity of mail-in voting. Let's say they believe in particular that fraud is rampant with mail-in ballots. After you've taken time to understand why they believe that to be true, you can tell them instances of voter fraud are extremely rare. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy institute, multiple analyses have shown it's more likely someone will be struck by lightning than commit mail ballot fraud. The use of mail in voting also dates back to the Civil War, and since then, states have developed multiple layers of security to safeguard elections. There are protections against tampering, protections against impersonation,

and protections against ballot stuffing. The big caveat here is that not everything has a factual alternative. Some things are just false, and that can be really challenging. If you claim Taylor Swift said, Pigs are green, but she didn't actually say that. While I can refute your statement as false, I can't point to concrete evidence that it never happened. Briney says it's important to note that corrections without a factual alternative tend to be less effective. Sometimes people really just don't want to hear that they're wrong or misinformed. I mean, imagine if your friend came up to you and started questioning something you hold to be inherently true. You probably wouldn't like that very much. If things are getting unproductive

or you're getting stonewalled, it's okay to take a step back, says Rachel. Conversational pauses are okay. And I think reorienting to say like, okay, like what I care about first and foremost is this relationship. And where do we then move forward together from there, I think helps. But if things are going well and it's a conversation you both feel comfortable returning to. Repeating the correction is really important just because of our limitations on memory. Researchers have found a phenomenon called belief regression. It's when a correction to misinformation works really well in the short term. But over time, people's belief kind of creeps towards these pre-correction levels. And what we found is it's mostly down to memory.

So it's worth repeating that corrections to misinformation are worth repeating. That brings us to our last takeaway. Takeaway five, don't expect things to change after one conversation. Because it's not easy, despite whatever media literacy or information literacy tools are out there. It is, like many types of changes and evolutions, a slow process. A slow process, but a worthwhile one, I think. There is always this sense of urgency when we hear something

true or false and saying, false, I want to correct you. But in like the spirit of building long-term relationships, to be able to do this on a slower scale will have a larger impact. To recap, takeaway one, take time to understand why your loved one believes a piece of misinformation. Takeaway two, have a discussion about where y'all get your information. Talk about why you find those sources to be trustworthy. Takeaway three, realize you're not here to change anyone's core beliefs. You're simply trying to address a piece of information that is not correct. Takeaway four, when you do attempt to correct misleading information, provide a detailed,

factual alternative. And takeaway five, don't expect things to change after one conversation. That's Audrey Nguyen, a producer for NPR's Democracy and Disinformation team. Thank you. And if you love LifeKit and want even more, subscribe to our newsletter at npr.org. Also, we love hearing from you, so if you have episode ideas or feedback you want to share, email us at lifekit at npr.org. This episode of LifeKit was produced and reported by Audrey Nguyen, with help from Claire Marie Schneider. It was edited by Brett Neely and Megan Cain, who is also LifeKit's supervising editor. Our visuals editor is Beck Harlan, and our digital editor is Malika Gareeb. Beth Donovan is our executive producer. Our production team also includes Andy Tegel, Margaret Serino, and Sylvie Douglas.

Engineering support comes from Sina Lefredo. Special thanks to Shannon Bond, Lisa Hagen, and Dolores Albarracin. I'm Mariel Seguera. Thanks for listening. Thank you.