Trust in information, political identity and the brain: an interdisciplinary fMRI study

Abstract

Misinformation has triggered government inquiries and threatens the perceived legitimacy of campaign processes and electoral outcomes. A new identity polarization has arisen between Remain and Leave sympathizers in the UK Brexit debate, with associated accusations of misinformation use. Competing psychological accounts of how people come to accept and defend misinformation pit self-reinforcing motivated cognition against lack of systematic reasoning as possible explanations. We harness insights from political science, cognitive neuroscience and psychology to examine the impact of trust and identity on information processing regarding Brexit in a group of Remain identifiers. Behaviourally, participants' affective responses to Brexit-related information are affected by whether the emotional valence of the message is compatible with their beliefs on Brexit (positive/negative) but not by their trust in the source of information. However, belief in the information is significantly affected by both (dis)trust in information source and by belief compatibility with the valence of the information. Neuroimaging results confirm this pattern, identifying areas involved in judgements of the self, others and automatic processing of affectively threatening stimuli, ultimately supporting motivated cognition accounts of misinformation endorsement. This article is part of the theme issue 'The political brain: neurocognitive and computational mechanisms'.

Keywords: functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); identity; media and information source; trust.

Figure 1.

fMRI task and design. (a) Schematic of a single trial during fMRI scan. (b) Examples of tweet texts and logos. (c) A 2 × 2 repeated measures ANOVA design (emotional valence × information source).

Figure 2.

Significant interaction between emotional valence and information source during the belief rating task (a) Cuneus and precuneus activity in the right hemisphere. (b) Parameter estimates of the cuneus/precuneus activity (error bars denote ±s.e.m.). (c) Correlation (and 95% HDI) between parameter estimates and belief ratings (Distrusted–Positive).

Figure 3.

The main effect of emotional valence on neural activation during the feeling rating task (see also electronic supplementary material, table S3 and figure S1). PreCG, precentral gyrus; IFGoperc, inferior frontal gyrus, opercular part; PostCG, postcentral gyrus; SMG, supramarginal gyrus; SMA, supplementary motor area; MCC, middle cingulate gyrus; ROL, rolandic operculum; HES, heschl's gyrus; SPG, superior parietal gyrus; SOG, superior occipital gyrus; IOG, inferior occipital gyrus; ITG, inferior temporal gyrus; MTG, middle temporal gyrus; MOG, middle occipital gyrus; ANG, angular gyrus; INS, insula; CUN, cuneus; PCUN, precuneus.