Evidence shows that vaccines do not cause autism, that global
warming is actually occurring, and that President Obama was indeed born in the
United States. Why then do people still — often passionately — believe the
opposite to be true? In this report, Lewandowsky (University of Western
Australia) and colleagues review recent psychological science detailing common
sources of misinformation, processes for evaluating the validity of new
information, and strategies for combating the effects of misinformation.
Cognitively, it is much easier for people to accept a given
piece of information than to evaluate its truthfulness.