Propaganda effect

Psychological studies from the 1960's showed that the more educated a person was [with a college degree], the more likely they were to non-critically accept obvious propaganda falsehoods that were printed in the newspaper, [and later retracted or proven to be false]. The less educated a person was, the more likely they were to doubt the information and question the source. This seems counter intuitive.

The reason given was they were trained by school that what was printed, or presented by recognized authorities, was unquestionably true.  In their academic experience and professional experience that was usually the case.  This behavior influenced how critically they questioned news articles unrelated to work or school.

I forget the reference, but this was from an "Information theory" course I took in the 1980's at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois.

copyright (c)2017

William Schaeffer