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“I would say that in the spreading of misinformation, online confirmation bias is the driver,” said the study’s senior author, Walter Quattrociocchi of the IMT Institute for Advanced Studies in Lucca, Italy. Confirmation bias is the tendency of individuals to pay attention to or believe information that confirms the personal values and beliefs they already hold, rather than allowing their beliefs to be changed by new information.

It’s a powerful force that many researchers have suggested plays a key role in the persistence of phenomena such as climate doubt. With an overwhelming abundance of evidence pointing to the existence of anthropogenic climate change (that is, climate change caused by human behaviour), for instance, many scientists have questioned why skepticism continues to be pervasive in society. Sociologists have suggested the reason has to do with the fact that it’s difficult to change an individual’s world view simply by presenting new information. Confirmation bias, rather, leads people to seek out evidence — however small or poorly supported — that supports their existing beliefs.

The new study is among the first to make a case for this type of behaviour when it comes to the spreading of scientific information or misinformation online, Quattrociocchi said.

“Until now, we have from one side the psychological or social studies that are working mainly with speculation and few experiments,” he said. “(Now) we have specific evidence of confirmation bias in the sense that once you choose a narrative, the selection criteria is basically confirmation: ‘I will choose evidence that coexists with things that I already believe are true.’”