Fighting Fake News with Psychology. The Pro-Truth Pledge

Abstract

Some recent psychology research has shown why people engage in deceptive behavior, and how we can prevent them from doing so. Given the alarming amount of fake news in the US public sphere, a group of psychologists has sought to combine the available research in a proposed intervention, the Pro-Truth Pledge, to help address this problem. The pledge asks signees to commit to 12 behaviors that research in psychology shows correlate with an orientation toward truthfulness. Early results show both that private citizens and public figures are willing to take the pledge, and survey, interview, and observational evidence shows the effectiveness of the pledge on reducing sharing misinformation on social media.

Keywords: deception, post-truth politics, post-truth, pro-social behavior, fake news, alternative facts, social media, false news, elections, truth, facts, Facebook, Twitter, digital media