The disinformation/misinformation problem might be worse than imagined.

Studies from the University of Texas at Austin demolish some widely held assumptions about Americans’ ability to distinguish true from false claims. In a study to be published in Current Directions in Psychological Science, the researchers find that, contrary to popular belief, Americans are actually good at discerning true from false information.

Because they can be more discerning than is often assumed, gullibility alone does not account for the fact that they believe things that aren’t so. When it comes to deciding what is true or false, what the researchers call “partisan bias . . . is pervasive and strong.” People accept as fact claims that support their underlying beliefs even if, under laboratory conditions, they are more discriminating.

“This ability to distinguish between true and false information disappears when they are deciding [whether or not] to share information,” explains Dr. Bertram Gawronski, head of UT-Austin’s Social Cognition Lab. Participants in experiments will express their belief in an assertion, but “when asked if they are sure that they want to share this information, they do-re-evaluate the claim.”

‘Partisan Bias’

And it gets weirder. Another study from Gawronski and his colleagues — a work in progress — has found that the source of a claim doesn’t really matter when it comes to information that conflicts with a person’s “partisan bias.”

“If a Republican is watching Fox and ‘pro-Democrat’ information appears, the viewer still disregards it,” Gawronski says. “Similarly, if a Democrat is watching MSNBC and ‘pro-Republican’ information appears, the viewer still disregards it.”

Finally, this: Susceptibility to mis- and disinformation, Gawronski adds, is more pronounced in the U.S. than in other countries where comparable research has been done.