US Citizens Are Strikingly Bad At Sorting Facts From Opinions

Every day, social media platforms inundate users with a relentless stream of information, transforming our feeds into a chaotic tapestry of opinions, claims, and trending topics. News channels, operating around the clock, amplify this barrage with updates and analyses that rarely take a breath. Friends and acquaintances often share articles that assert various “truths,” each accompanied by their own interpretations and biases. In the midst of this overwhelming flood of information, a troubling reality surfaces: a significant number of Americans find themselves unable to discern what constitutes a fact and what is merely an opinion.

Recent research from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign highlights this alarming trend, which poses grave implications for civic discourse and the health of democracy. Strikingly, many citizens struggle to perform better than chance when tasked with categorizing statements as factual or opinion-based. This confusion not only jeopardizes informed decision-making but also undermines the very foundation of public debate and democratic engagement.

Fact or Fiction

Research led by political science scholars at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found that nearly half of Americans (45.7%) struggle with a seemingly basic skill: distinguishing factual statements from opinions.

“There’s a huge amount of research on misinformation. But what we found is that, even before we get to the stage of labeling something misinformation, people often have trouble discerning the difference between statements of fact and opinion.” explains Mondak, a co-author of the research and an affiliate of the Center for Social and Behavioral Science.

Mondak and colleague Matthew Mettler conducted an online survey asking 2,500 Americans to categorize 12 statements about current events as either “fact” or “opinion.” Examples included factual statements like “President Barack Obama was born in United States” and opinion statements such as “Democracy is greatest form of government.”

Success rates varied dramatically across statements. While 78% correctly identified “Health care costs per person in US are highest in developed world” as factual, only 26% recognized “Earth is between 5,000 and 10,000 years old” as a factual claim (though factually incorrect).

Study participants also struggled with opinion statements. Only 48% correctly identified “Diversity helps make America great” as opinion rather than fact.

Mind Games

Statements of fact are claims that can be “proved or disproved by objective evidence.” Facts often involve quantifiable information from verifiable sources, such as government records, scientific testing, or official statistics.

Opinions, by contrast, reflect beliefs, values, and personal preferences. Claims like “unemployment rate is too high” or “green is most beautiful color” cannot be proven true or false, they depend on individual values and subjective assessments.

An important distinction: factual statements aren’t necessarily true. “2 + 2 = 22” represents a factual claim – just an incorrect one. Errors in factual statements don’t transform them into opinions; they become incorrect factual statements.

Many survey respondents seemed confused by this distinction. For example, many people incorrectly classified factual statements they disagreed with as “opinions,” essentially creating a mental escape hatch from uncomfortable realities.

Mettler explains how partisanship distorts reasoning: “Many respondents formed answers to fit their partisan narrative.” People systematically reconstruct reality, particularly on politically charged topics, to align with existing beliefs.

Brain Power Helps

Four significant factors demonstrated a modest correlation with enhanced fact-opinion differentiation skills, highlighting the complexity of critical thinking in today’s information landscape:

• Civics Knowledge: A solid grasp of government structures and processes empowers individuals to understand how policies are formed and the implications of various viewpoints within democratic frameworks.
• Current Events Awareness: Staying informed about ongoing news stories fosters an understanding of contemporary issues and their various perspectives, allowing individuals to better analyze the facts presented in media.
• Education Level: Higher levels of formal education often correlate with diverse learning experiences that cultivate analytical skills, encouraging individuals to engage with information critically and discern between objective facts and subjective opinions.
• Cognitive Abilities: Strong general reasoning skills are essential for processing information logically and effectively. These cognitive strengths enable individuals to evaluate arguments, detect biases, and make informed judgments about the validity of statements they encounter.

People possessing greater “political sophistication” demonstrated higher success rates in sorting facts from opinions. However, researchers noted that these improvements mainly reduced random errors, not politically motivated ones.

“Although people with greater political sophistication were better at distinguishing fact from opinion, affective partisan polarization tends to promote systematic partisan error,” Mettler said. “It distorts people’s capacity to reason their way through these statements.”

Education alone doesn’t entirely solve factual blindness. Cognitive biases run deep, particularly when political identity feels threatened by factual claims.

Partisan Blindfolds

Political partisanship emerged as dominant factor influencing incorrect responses. Democrats and Republicans both demonstrated troubling tendencies to see their side as possessing facts while opposing partisans merely held opinions.

“As partisan political views grow more polarized, Democrats and Republicans both tend to construct an alternate reality in which they report that their side has marshalled the facts and the other side merely has opinions,” Mondak explained.

Researchers measured “affective partisan polarization” – emotional difference between how warmly people felt toward their own party versus opposition. As polarization increased, fact-opinion differentiation decreased dramatically.

For strongly partisan respondents, statements aligning with political preferences frequently got labeled as “facts” while contradictory claims became mere “opinions” – regardless of actual status.

Study results showed this effect was more pronounced among Republicans than Democrats. Growing partisan polarization decreased accurate responses significantly among Republican-leaning respondents.

Such polarization creates meta-level misinformation. People disagree not only about specific facts but about the fundamental nature of what constitutes a fact. When basic definitions of reality diverge, meaningful communication breaks down.

Media Muddles

The modern media environment significantly contributes to confusion between facts and opinions. Cable news networks increasingly blur the boundaries between reporting and commentary.

“Trend nowadays, especially on cable news, involves more blurring of opinion and fact,” said Mondak.

News consumers constantly struggle to identify where factual reporting ends and opinion begins. Many media outlets seamlessly mix analysis, commentary, and factual reporting, often without clear demarcation.

Researchers suggest media organizations could help fight misinformation by consistently reinforcing the distinction between factual reporting and opinion content. By clearly labeling opinion segments and maintaining boundaries around factual reporting, news sources might help audiences develop stronger differentiation skills.

Currently, many Americans approach news with partisan lens already firmly in place. Information contradicting existing beliefs gets mentally recategorized as “opinion” while agreeable information becomes “fact” – regardless of objective reality.

A Different Kind of Misinformation

Most research on misinformation examines whether people get facts right or wrong. The implicit assumption is that people agree factual matters exist but sometimes err on specific facts.

Fact-opinion confusion creates deeper problem, what researchers call “meta-level misinformation.” People disagree about whether matters under consideration even involve facts at all.

Consider conversation about unemployment rates. Person one claims rate stands at 10.5%. Person two provides Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing actual 3.7% rate. Person one responds: “We can agree to disagree. We’re each entitled to our own opinion.”

Such misunderstanding fundamentally undermines the correction of misinformation. Fact-checking cannot work if people reclassify facts as opinions whenever they are contradicted.

“Faulty fact-opinion differentiation leaves individuals misinformed not because they are wrong on facts but because they are wrong on what facts are,” researchers concluded.

People consistently misclassified statements in ways benefiting their political viewpoint. Republicans labeled conservative-friendly statements as “facts” while categorizing liberal-friendly statements as “opinions” – Democrats demonstrated mirror-image pattern.

Professor Mondak explains danger: “A consensus of ‘We can agree to disagree’ can emerge even for questions of indisputable fact. Well, you can’t just ‘Agree to disagree’ that 2 + 2 = 22.”

Hope for Information Literacy

Amid concerning findings, researchers offer potential remedies focused on prevention rather than cure alone. There is a renewed emphasis on teaching fact-opinion differentiation skills from early education onward. Childhood lessons distinguishing factual statements from opinion statements build a foundation for information processing throughout life.

Media organizations also have a responsibility. By carefully distinguishing reporting from commentary and explaining differences between factual claims and opinion statements, news sources could help audiences develop stronger differentiation skills.

Prevention requires building fundamental skills in identifying claim types before assessing accuracy. For democracy to function properly, citizens must share a basic understanding of reality and recognize the nature of factual claims. Without agreement on what constitutes factual matters versus opinion matters, productive civic discourse becomes impossible.

Findings raise profound concerns for political dialogue, particularly during election seasons. As Mondak warns: “If you can’t tell if somebody is proposing a statement of fact versus a statement of opinion, you’re doomed as an information consumer.”

Fact-opinion differentiation represents a foundational skill for navigating the modern information landscape. Success combating misinformation depends not just on correcting false facts but also on ensuring citizens recognize factual claims when they see them. Fixing America’s fact problem begins with agreement on what facts actually are.