Fake News Meeting Self-Awareness:

A Psychological Perspective on Social Cognition in the Age of Moral Hypocrisy

Resumo

The present work emerges as a critical-reflective proposal, applied to an empirical approach, on how the phenomenon of the dissemination of fake news can be understood from the theoretical basis of Objective Self-Awareness and related constructs in the scope of Social Cognition. To this end, the work took as an empirical reference a speech by the former president of the Republic of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, in which he stated that he had "there was a spark" ("pintou um clima")[1] with young Venezuelan underage women, insinuating untruthfully that such young women could be practicing prostitution. To this end, initially, the theoretical bases on the field of Social Cognition, Objective Self-Awareness, and Fake News were briefly outlined. In a second moment, links between the constructs addressed were proposed, using the empirical cut as a basis for analysis. Finally, from the results of the theoretical and empirical reflections carried out, possible paths were traced for the investigation of fake news, having the hypothesis of Self-Awareness as a central aspect of Social Cognition and Moral Hypocrisy as a relevant motivational construct in this phenomenon.

[1] The phrase "pintou um clima", which was translated as "there was a spark", is a Brazilian Portuguese idiomatic expression that typically implies a strong romantic or sexual draw to another person, a suggestive or flirtatious atmosphere, often mutual and context dependent. In this specific context, its use by Jair Bolsonaro attracted controversy due to the implications of a suggestive undertone in describing a situation involving underage Venezuelan girls. The translation "there was a spark" was chosen to capture the ambiguous and potentially inappropriate tone conveyed in the original Portuguese, aligning with the nuanced interpretation discussed in this analysis. The choice preserves the interpretive flexibility that led to public criticism while remaining faithful to the original expression's meaning within its cultural and linguistic context.