Addressing hostile influence operations – psychological vulnerabilities and mitigating measures

This report is a literature study providing an updated review of international research on psychological vulnerabilities to influence and measures that may strengthen human resilience. The need to address threats from influence operations are described by NATO, by the Norwegian intelligence, surveillance, and security services, and in the Norwegian White paper on total preparedness, Long-term Defence Plan and National Security Strategy. Enhancing the insight into these vulnerabilities and countermeasures is considered essential for Norway’s societal resilience, defence capability, democracy, and security. Fundamentally, this concerns protecting the population against hostile influence on their perceptions, attitudes, and behaviour.
This report reviews research at multiple levels, ranging from the individual to the societal level. The synthesis of this research provides new insights. The research focus on susceptibility to influence from disinformation (intentionally false information), misinformation (unintentionally false information), and conspiracy theories, and link this to antagonist exploitation of technologically mediated influence through websites, social media platforms, and news providers. With the aid of artificial intelligence (AI) influence operations are growing in scale, speed, and distribution, and are increasingly tailored to specific individuals and groups.
Research on individual differences indicate that personality disorders, lower cognitive and analytical abilities, religiosity, right-wing authoritarianism, social dominance orientation, magical thinking, and political orientation toward the political right (particularly the far right) are associated with susceptibility to believing disinformation and conspiracy theories. General vulnerabilities at the individual level include cognitive, emotional, and motivational factors.
The research further suggest that national, social, and cultural conditions may be more weighty explanatory factors than individual ones. Vulnerabilities include economic challenges, low education, high power distance, collectivism, and narcissism at the group or national level. Trust was found to be both a foundation for cooperation and democracy, and a vulnerability factor.
Research on interventions at the individual level indicate that all the referenced methods (pre-emptive information, media literacy, education, inoculation techniques, content-labelling, accuracy-nudges, and fact-checking) have positive effects on resilience to influence, to varying degrees. Combinations of intervention methods yield the strongest effects. Furthermore, the research show that motivation may matter more than ability in human susceptibility to online influence on their perceptions, beliefs, and behaviours. Personalised interventions are discussed as a potential means to increase the effectiveness of interventions and reach individuals and groups that are unresponsive to general information and attitude campaigns.
The research reviewed indicate that it is crucial to prioritise societal-level measures that foster community, inclusion, trust, fairness, safety, co-determination, and equal access to high quality information, while also implementing concrete, competence-enhancing measures to increase individual psychological resilience. Coordinated efforts from both the military and civilian sectors are deemed essential. The report also identifies a number of areas in need of further research.