来源：《科学美国人》2022年4月号
Behavioral and political scientists have pointed fingers at political conservatives when it comes to spreading fake news stories. But not all conservatives do it, and sweeping generalizations threaten to condemn everyone who subscribes to conservative values. This approach risks even more dangerous polarization.
在传播假新闻的问题上，行为和政治科学家将矛头指向了政治保守派。但并不是所有的保守派都传播假新闻，一概而论可能会谴责每一个信奉保守价值观的人。这种做法可能导致更危险的政治极化。
Political leanings are far from the only determinants of behavior. Personality is a crucial influence, so our research on misinformation sharing has focused on that. We looked specifically at conscientiousness, which captures differences in people’s orderliness, impulse control, conventionality and reliability.
政治倾向远不是行为的唯一决定因素。性格是一个至关重要的影响因素，所以我们关于假消息分享的研究就集中在这一点上。我们专门研究了尽责性，它反映了人们在秩序性、冲动控制、规约性和可靠性方面的差异。
In a series of eight studies with a total of 4,642 participants, we examined whether low-conscientiousness conservatives (LCCs) disseminate more misinformation than other conservatives or low-conscientiousness liberals. First we determined people’s political ideology and conscientiousness through assessments that asked participants about their values and behaviors. We then showed the same people a series of real and fake news stories relating to COVID and asked them to rate how accurate the stories were. We also asked whether they would consider sharing each story.
在一系列共有4642名参与者的八项研究中，我们考察了低尽责性保守派（LCC）是否比其他保守派或低尽责性自由派传播更多假信息。首先，我们通过对参与者的价值观和行为进行评估，确定他们的政治意识形态和尽责性。然后，我们向这些人展示了一系列与新冠疫情有关的真假新闻，并让他们对这些新闻的准确性进行评分。我们还问他们是否会考虑分享每个新闻。
Both liberals and conservatives sometimes saw false stories as accurate. This error was likely driven in part by their wanting certain stories to be true because they aligned with their beliefs.
自由派和保守派有时都认为虚假的报道是准确的。这种错误可能部分是由于他们希望某些新闻故事是真实的，因为这些新闻与自己的信念一致。
But actually sharing false news was markedly higher among LCCs compared with everyone else in the study, although some people of all persuasions did it. There was no difference between liberals and conservatives with high levels of conscientiousness. Low-conscientiousness liberals did not share more misinformation than their high-conscientiousness liberal counterparts.
但事实上，与研究中的其他人相比，低尽责性保守派分享假新闻的比例明显更高，尽管持其他信仰的一些人也会分享假新闻。在尽责性较高的自由派和保守派之间没有差异。低尽责性自由派并不比高尽责性自由派分享更多的假消息。
What explains the exceptional tendency of LCCs to share fake news? To explore this question, we gathered information about participants’ politics and personalities and administered questionnaires to assess their need for chaos—the desire to disrupt and destroy the existing political and social institutions—as well as their support of conservative issues, support for Donald Trump, trust in mainstream media and time spent on social media. LCCs, we learned, expressed a general desire for chaos, and this need may explain their proclivity to spread misinformation. Other factors, including support for Trump, were not as strongly related.
如何解释低尽责性保守派分享假新闻的异常趋势？为了探究这个问题，我们收集了参与者的政治和性格信息，并进行了问卷调查，以评估他们对混乱的需求——破坏和摧毁现有政治和社会制度的欲望——以及他们对保守问题的支持，对唐纳德·特朗普的支持，对主流媒体的信任和花在社交媒体上的时间。我们了解到，低尽责性保守派表达了一种对混乱的普遍渴望，而这种需求可能解释了它们传播假消息的倾向。其他因素，包括对特朗普的支持，并没有那么紧密的联系。
Unfortunately, our work on this personality trait also suggests that accuracy labels on news stories will not solve the problem of misinformation. We ran a study where we explicitly stated whether each news story in question was false, using a “disputed” tag commonly seen on social media, or true, using a “supported” tag. We found that the supported tag increased the rate at which real stories were shared among both liberals and conservatives. LCCs, however, continued to share misinformation at a greater rate despite the clear warnings that the stories were false.
不幸的是，我们对这种性格特征的研究也表明，新闻报道的准确度标签并不能解决假消息的问题。我们进行了一项研究，使用社交媒体上常见的“有争议”标签和“证实”标签：“有争议”标签明确说明所讨论的新闻报道是虚假的；“证实”标签明确说明新闻是真实的。我们发现，证实”标签增加了自由派和保守派之间分享真实故事的速度。然而，低尽责性保守派继续以更高的速度分享假消息，尽管有明确的警告称这些报道是虚假的。