Should I Trust the Bank or the Social Movement? Motivated Reasoning and Acceptance of Misinformation

• In Event: 511 - Section on Social Psychology Paper Session. Ethnographic Contributions to Social Psychology

Abstract

How can people believe corporate and state misinformation even if a social movement organization in their community has been countering this misinformation for years? Why do people knowingly accept misinformation without even being upset about it? I address these questions by analyzing ethnographic data and 91 interviews with Chilean low-income housing debtors. While the state and banks have significant agency in inducing the unproblematic acceptance of misinformation, debtors also play an active role in the processes. First, debtors have to decide whom to trust, which is not only a cognitive problem but a behavioral problem involving risks. Second, debtors engage in “motivated reasoning” or affect-driven biased information processing, both to dismiss the possibility of being misinformed, to downplay the significance of misinformation, and to direct blame away from misinforming institutions. The latter two practices reduce their anger about being misinformed. The findings have implications for studies of social movement framing and counter-information, for the cognitive psychology of misinformation, and for the sociology and social psychology of acquiescence.

Author

• Sebastian G. Guzman, Universidad Andrés Bello