Professor Tom Buchanan, Professor of Psychology, and Dr Deborah Husbands, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, have recently been awarded a Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grant worth £146,000 to address the critical social problem of why people spread false political information on social media.
The two-year project which is due to commence in January will address the critical social problem of why ordinary individuals sometimes share false information on social media. As well as individual characteristics like personality, it will examine the motivations of people who have shared false information in the past.
Professor Buchanan and Dr Husbands’ new project will directly ask people why they have, whether deliberately or unintentionally, spread false information and determine why some people engage with misinformation. Their research will examine competing explanations of such behaviours, and test whether key variables identified actually predict real-world behaviour through the use of questionnaires and real-world observations. By completing this research, the researchers aim to find solutions to help reduce the problem of fake news online.
The new research project builds on Professor Buchanan’s previous research in this area which examined how to reduce the spread of false information on social media and the potential harm of engaging with fake news online.
Leverhulme Trust Research Project Grants are offered to researchers based at universities, higher education institutions or registered charities with university-equivalent research capacity to undertake an innovative and original research project. The grant for Professor Buchanan’s research is worth £146,000, and will cover research staff costs and associated research costs for the project.
Talking about his research, Professor Tom Buchanan said: “False information on social media is a real problem that can have serious effects for society and individuals. The terms ‘misinformation’, ‘disinformation’ and ‘Fake News’ have become part of everyday conversation. Many of us will have had the experience of seeing friends or family share material that we think is untrue, and struggled to understand why. This grant will allow us to continue our work seeking to understand the phenomenon.”
Find out more about the project on the Leverhulme Trust website.
