Muddying the Waters: The Effect of Disinformation on Truth Judgements and Perception of Social Consensus

Disinformation may have a variety of effects on an audience. Disinformation may convince people to adopt that false belief. Disinformation may also create doubt concerning true information and lead people to be less convinced there is an agreed upon position. In this study, we examined how flooding individuals with conflicting information about controversial topics affected what they believed to be true and their belief that there was a social consensus. We presented some people with true information, some with false information, and others with a mix of true and false information. We found that individuals presented with one-sided information (i.e., true or false) consistently rated information from the perspective they were shown and had more confidence in an agreed upon expert consensus. In contrast, individuals presented with both sides were less confident in true information and that a consensus exists. Flooding people with a mix of disinformation and true information can muddy the waters, making it harder to discern the truth.