University of Cambridge psychologists have developed the first validated “misinformation susceptibility test”.

The quick two-minute quiz gives a solid indication of how vulnerable a person is to being duped by the kind of fabricated news that is flooding online spaces.

The test, proven to work through a series of experiments involving over 8,000 participants taking place over two years, has been deployed by polling organisation YouGov to determine how susceptible Americans are to fake headlines.

The first survey to use the new 20-point test, called ‘MIST’ by researchers and developed using an early version of ChatGPT, has found that – on average – adult US citizens correctly classified two-thirds (65%) of headlines they were shown as either real or fake.

However, the polling found that younger adults are worse than older adults at identifying false headlines, and that the more time someone spent online recreationally, the less likely they were to be able to tell real news from misinformation.

This runs counter to prevailing public attitudes regarding online misinformation spread, say researchers – that older, less digitally-savvy “boomers” are more likely to be taken in by fake news.

You can take the test here.

It's so positively, stereotypically, and predictably left-wing -- you just have to assume that going in and it's a cinch. It really says more about the test designers than the takers IMO.

@bwolf whatt is the predictable left wing part? I'm curious.

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@bwolf dude, no intention of starting some sort of passing contest with you. I have genuine curiosity about what indications of bias you spotted. You don't want to answer, that's OK.

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Tymbeline 

University of Cambridge psychologists have developed the first validated “misinformation susceptibility test”. The quick two-minute quiz gives a solid indication of how vulnerable a person is to being duped by the kind of fabricated news that is flooding online spaces.

Hi @Tymbeline,

I am sorry, but this topic, in today's highly polarized environment, qualifies as politically sensitive and so falls under the forum's rule against politics.

You may see that there are already comments being made on the politics of the questions on the quiz.

I do not think you were attempting to raise a political point or controversy, but I am afraid it is inevitable for politics to arise here. Our experience is that political issues are out of place in the forum, and that they only create disagreements that have no relation to trading and that are unnecessarily disruptive.

In light of this, this thread is now closed.

Bob.