Skip to main navigation menu Skip to main content Skip to site footer
FrancoAngeli Journals

Frontiere

No. 1 (2024)

Unbelievable stories: psyche, tales, and problematic information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3280/gruoa1-2024oa22681
Submitted
aprile 29, 2026
Published
2026-05-13

Abstract

The author investigates some factors that may contribute to the spread of fake news in the contemporary world. After outlining the context of global crisis (with the resulting anxieties) and describing the fundamental features of the information phenomenon, he attempts to reconstruct its anthropological traces linked to the use of stories in human experience. The author reflects on the use of narratives in conveying value systems and how they predispose people to a less critical reception of content. The author addresses the relationship between false information and technology in terms of their impact on the intensity and methods of dissemination. The author discusses the problem of judging truth from both a philosophical and psychological point of view. The author also reflects on the uses that false information can have and proposes some scenarios in which group work can form a basis for developing a different approach to these issues.

References

  1. Bauman Z. (2012). Modernità liquida. Roma: Laterza.
  2. Blackburn S. (2016). Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Oxford: OUP.
  3. Colman A.M. (2015). A Dictionary of Psychology. Oxford: OUP.
  4. Correale A. (1991). Il campo istituzionale. Roma: Borla.
  5. Friedmann R. (2019). Dreamtelling, Relations, and Large Groups: New Developments in Group Analysis. London: Routledge.
  6. Giusti S. e Piras E., Eds. (2020). Democracy and Fake News: Information Manipulation and Post-Truth Politics. London: Routledge.
  7. Gottschall J. (2022). Il lato oscuro delle storie: Come lo storytelling cementa le società e talvolta le distrugge. Torino: Bollati Boringhieri.
  8. Harari Y.N., (2015). Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. London: Vintage.
  9. McRaney D. (2011). You are not so Smart: Why you have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why your Memory is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways you’re Deluding Yourself. London: Avery.
  10. Morin E. (2014). Introduction à la pensée complexe. Paris: Points (edizione Kindle books).
  11. Orwell G. (1949). 1984. London: Secker & Warburg (edizione Kindle books).
  12. Peled-Elhanan N. (2012). Palestine in Israeli School Books: Ideology and Propaganda in Education. London: I.B. Tauris.
  13. Roozenbeek J. e van der Linden S. (2024). The Psychology of Misinformation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  14. Stato Maggiore della Difesa (2023). Cognitive Warfare. La competizione nella dimensione cognitiva. https://www. difesa.it/assets/allegati/31787/4.cognitive_warfare_-_la_competizione_nella_dimensione_cognitiva._ed.2023.pdf (consultato in data 14 gennaio 2026).
  15. Vellani V., Zheng S., Ercelik D. e Sharot T. (2023). The Illusory Truth Effect Leads to the Spread of Misinformation. Cognition, 236, 105421. DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105421
  16. Volkan V.D. (2020). Large-Group Psychology: Racism, Societal Divisions, Narcissistic Leaders and Who We Are We Now. London: Karnac Books (edizione Kindle books).
  17. World Economic Forum (2025). The Global Risks Report 2025. 20th Edition. https://reports.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Global_ Risks_Report_2025.pdf (consultato in data 14 gennaio 2026).

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...