{"id":788,"date":"2026-05-12T08:28:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-12T08:28:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meediaradar.ee\/materjalid\/raamatututvustus-miks-targad-inimesed-usuvad-valesid-asju\/"},"modified":"2026-05-13T08:01:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-13T08:01:25","slug":"raamatututvustus-miks-targad-inimesed-usuvad-valesid-asju","status":"publish","type":"material","link":"https:\/\/meediaradar.ee\/en\/materjalid\/raamatututvustus-miks-targad-inimesed-usuvad-valesid-asju\/","title":{"rendered":"Book overview: Why do intelligent people believe false things?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Joseph P. Forgas\u2019s edited volume The Psychology of False Beliefs: Collective Delusions and Conspiracy Theories<\/a><\/em> begins from an uncomfortable but necessary premise: human thinking is not, by default, directed solely toward discovering the truth. We like to imagine ourselves as rational decision-makers who revise their views when better evidence appears. Public life repeatedly challenges this simple self-image: political confrontations, conspiracy theories that spread during the pandemic, conflicts on social media, and, increasingly, an information environment shaped by artificial intelligence all show that the human relationship with truth and knowledge is far more complex. Often, people are not seeking truth as much as coherence with their group, fears, hopes, and already established worldview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Misinformation and the crisis of trust are no longer problems confined to journalism, education, or politics. The Reuters Institute\u2019s 2025 Digital News Report<\/em> noted that 58% of respondents worldwide are concerned about what is real and what is fake in online news; the same report also points out that concern about misinformation does not always mean the ability to identify objectively false claims, but may also reflect political aversion or perceived bias. In this situation, a psychological perspective becomes essential: before asking how to refute misinformation, we need to ask why some falsehoods may feel more believable, more comforting, or morally more satisfying than a truthful explanation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a scholarly edited volume that does not present a single linear argument, but brings together different authors\u2019 approaches to a shared problem. This is both a strength and a limitation. It is a strength because false beliefs are examined from multiple angles: cognitive dissonance, motivation, political polarization, religion, conspiracy theories, academic misconceptions, and intergroup hostility. The book brings together authors who study the evolutionary, biological, cognitive, and social factors involved in the formation and persistence of false beliefs. The limitation is that the edited format does not always produce a unified argument. Some chapters are conceptually more forceful; others read more like stand-alone articles. The reader must assemble into a whole the question that recurs across the book\u2019s different sections: why can weakly justified beliefs remain so persuasive and worth defending for the people who hold them?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most interesting aspect of the book is its shift from individual error to collective belief regimes. A false belief is not treated here merely as a wrong proposition in someone\u2019s mind. It is a social practice: something that is shared, repeated, defended, and used to define who belongs to \u201cus\u201d and who belongs to \u201cthem\u201d. This helps explain why fact-checking can remain powerless. If a belief serves the function of identity, loyalty, or restoring a sense of order to the world, then a correction does not merely remove an erroneous claim; it also threatens to remove meaning. A conspiracy theory may offer a simple culprit, moral clarity, and the feeling that a chaotic world is still under someone\u2019s control. In a crisis, for example, a conspiracy theory may seem credible not because it is better supported by evidence, but because it gives fear a concrete cause and a culprit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For precisely this reason, the volume is especially valuable for those working with information literacy, media literacy, and the quality of public debate. The book helps explain why accurate information alone may not unsettle false beliefs. At the heart of media and information literacy is the ability to engage with information critically: to evaluate sources, understand the logic of digital environments, and notice when information is not merely trying to inform us, but also to steer, influence, or mislead us. European Union media literacy policy links similar skills, among other things, to digital services, platform responsibility, and action against disinformation. This volume adds a necessary psychological dimension: information literacy is not only about checking sources or using reverse image search. It also involves self-knowledge \u2014 the ability to notice when we want to believe something precisely because it confirms our fears, resentment, or group belonging.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the book\u2019s strongest features is its refusal of simple Enlightenment optimism. Education and expertise do not automatically protect people from false beliefs. In some cases, they may provide more sophisticated tools for defending one\u2019s existing views. This point is especially important in the book\u2019s treatment of the academic world. The volume also addresses false beliefs in universities and among experts, which is welcome, because in public debate error is often placed comfortably elsewhere \u2014 among the uneducated, extremists, or the gullible. The book reminds us that cognitive vulnerability is democratically distributed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, the book\u2019s central concept, \u201cfalse beliefs\u201d, is inevitably problematic. In some cases, falsity is clear, as with empirically refuted pandemic conspiracies or fabricated political narratives. But some beliefs occupy a greyer area, where values, worldview, interpretation, and scientific uncertainty intersect. Here the reader needs to proceed carefully. If \u201cfalse belief\u201d becomes too broad a label, it may begin to designate not only genuinely false beliefs, but also uncomfortable, minority, or anti-consensus positions. This is the most important caution the book requires from its reader: strong analysis of misinformation must be able to distinguish between factual error, unsupported inference, ideological interpretation, and moral disagreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second possible limitation lies in the boundaries of psychological explanation. False beliefs do not arise only inside the individual mind, nor do they persist only because of cognitive biases. They are also shaped by the platform economy, attention logic, political propaganda, the weakening of the media market, and the credibility of institutions. The European Commission describes foreign information manipulation as a threat that undermines democratic processes and links it to the ability of new technologies to spread disinformation at a greater scale and speed than before. Psychology explains why a person may be susceptible; political and technological analysis explains why susceptibility can become a mass phenomenon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, The Psychology of False Beliefs<\/em> is worth reading for anyone interested in why facts so often lose in public life. It is neither a simple manual for arguing with conspiracy theorists nor a popular-science recipe book against misinformation. It is better understood as an intellectual toolkit that helps reveal the psychological needs, social bonds, and epistemological difficulties behind false beliefs. For the reader, the book\u2019s value lies precisely here: it helps us think about information literacy more deeply than as a collection of technical verification methods. Serious media literacy begins with the uncomfortable recognition that even educated, well-intentioned, and supposedly critical people can be mistaken \u2014 including ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Joseph P. Forgas\u2019s edited volume The Psychology of False Beliefs: Collective Delusions and Conspiracy Theories begins from an uncomfortable but necessary premise: human thinking is not, by default, directed solely toward discovering the truth. We like to imagine ourselves as rational decision-makers who revise their views when better evidence appears. Public life repeatedly challenges this … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":789,"template":"","material_type":[],"class_list":["post-788","material","type-material","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/meediaradar.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/material\/788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/meediaradar.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/material"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/meediaradar.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/material"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meediaradar.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/meediaradar.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/material\/788\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meediaradar.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/meediaradar.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"material_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/meediaradar.ee\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/material_type?post=788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}