New research from the University of Colorado Boulder has illuminated a notable and pressing cognitive phenomenon impacting online political discourse: adults aged 55 and older are significantly more prone to sharing political misinformation on social media platforms than their younger counterparts. Contrary to prevailing assumptions, this proclivity does not stem primarily from diminished cognitive faculties or an impaired ability to discern truth from falsehood. Instead, emerging data suggest a profound influence of increasing partisanship with age, which fundamentally skews their evaluative processes and social media behaviors.
The comprehensive study, involving nearly 2,500 participants across the United States and Brazil, rigorously explored the intersection of age, political leanings, and misinformation dissemination. Participants spanned a wide age range from 18 to 80, providing a rich dataset to analyze the nuanced relationship between age-related changes in political identity strength and susceptibility to misinformation sharing. The geographically and culturally diverse sample further reinforced the cross-national significance of the findings, highlighting that the phenomenon transcends distinct political and social systems.
A pivotal insight uncovered by the researchers is the strengthening of partisan identity as individuals age. Older adults exhibited more entrenched political affiliations, which heavily influenced their perception of news veracity. This heightened partisan bias led them to accept and share information favorable to their political group, irrespective of its factual accuracy. Crucially, older participants were not less capable of analytical thinking or distinguishing between true and false content in a generalized sense; rather, their evaluations were selectively filtered through partisan lenses that biased their judgments toward misinformation aligned with their ideological preferences.
The study’s design capitalized on realistic stimuli, presenting participants with various political news headlines tailored to their national contexts. These included both genuine and fact-checked false headlines with explicit partisan valences. For instance, in the United States, a fabricated pro-Republican headline claiming papal endorsement of Donald Trump was scrutinized alongside similarly styled, but partisan, misinformation originating in Brazil. Participants’ willingness to share these headlines and their assessments of truthfulness were meticulously recorded, providing a behavioral window into the cognitive mechanisms driving misinformation spread.
Importantly, this research challenges simplistic narratives blaming older adults’ cognitive decline as the predominant cause behind their dissemination of false news. Prior studies have posited declining analytic abilities and memory confusion as explanations, but the new findings distinguish cognitive capability from motivational biases. Older individuals demonstrated intact critical reasoning skills when their partisan biases were not engaged, indicating that affective commitment to political identity exerts a more powerful influence than previously appreciated.
This partisan influence manifested not only in higher acceptance of favorable misinformation, but also in a reciprocal skepticism toward disconfirming headlines supporting opposing political factions. The phenomenon, described as “motivated reasoning,” shows that older adults’ cognitive filters amplify their confirmation biases, leading them to endorse and propagate misinformation that validates their ideological worldview while dismissing contradictory information as untrustworthy. This asymmetric evaluation of evidence underscores the complexity of misinformation dynamics and the challenges in mitigating its spread.
Crucially, the study observed this pattern consistently across different political systems, debunking the notion that bipartisan divides unique to countries like the United States solely drive such biases. Brazilian participants, despite their nation’s multi-party landscape, exhibited comparable partisan reasoning patterns. This finding signals that partisan biases in misinformation are a robust psychological feature linked more closely to human cognitive and social identity processes than to institutional political environments per se.
The implications for social media ecosystems and public health of democracy are profound. Current misinformation countermeasures predominantly focus on improving people’s abilities to detect false information — for example, through digital literacy campaigns and fact-checking. However, these strategies may inadequately address the root cause identified here: the affective and identity-based motivations that predispose older adults to accept and share partisan misinformation. Encouraging less partisan communication practices and fostering cross-ideological social engagement emerge as critical complementary approaches.
Experts involved in the study advocate for more nuanced interventions. Encouraging users to critically reflect on their own political biases and to interrogate the impulses driving their sharing behavior could help attenuate the degradation of discourse quality online. Additionally, the promotion of ‘inter-group contact’— sustained interactions between individuals holding divergent political beliefs — may reduce polarization and mitigate partisan echo chambers, thus fostering a healthier democratic conversation environment.
This new paradigm invites deeper consideration of how age, identity, cognition, and social context intertwine in shaping information ecosystems. It also opens avenues for policy and platform design innovations to recalibrate social media incentives away from partisan echo amplification and toward more deliberative, fact-based engagement. Understanding that misinformation sharing among older adults is less about cognitive frailty and more about entrenched partisan loyalty reframes the challenge and necessitates bespoke solutions tailored to the psychological realities of this demographic.
Looking ahead, further investigation is warranted to unpack the mechanisms preserving or even reinforcing partisan biases in later life. Integrating insights from psychology, political science, and communication studies will be essential to developing evidence-based strategies that empower all age groups to participate constructively in the digital information landscape. As misinformation continues to threaten social cohesion and democratic legitimacy worldwide, embracing these complexities is critical for designing effective responses in an increasingly polarized age.
This pioneering study, published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, anchors itself as a keystone in understanding the socio-cognitive underpinnings of age-related misinformation dynamics and calls for multisectoral collaboration to promote resilience against the deleterious effects of politically motivated misinformation sharing.
Subject of Research: People
Article Title: The age of misinformation: Older people exhibit greater partisan bias in sharing and evaluating (mis)information accuracy.
News Publication Date: 3-Nov-2025
Web References: http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0001868
References: University of Colorado Boulder, Journal of Experimental Psychology: General
Keywords: Political science, Psychological science, Gerontology
