Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon
his study investigated the cognitive processing of true and false political information. Specifically, it examined the impact of source credibility on the assessment of veracity when information comes from a polarizing source (Experiment 1), and effectiveness of explanations when they come from one&...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | en_US |
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Royal Society
2017
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/110045 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7827-9396 |
| _version_ | 1811073098686922752 |
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| author | Lewandowsky, Stephan Ecker, Ullrich K. H. Swire-Thompson, Briony Berinsky, Adam |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Lewandowsky, Stephan Ecker, Ullrich K. H. Swire-Thompson, Briony Berinsky, Adam |
| author_sort | Lewandowsky, Stephan |
| collection | MIT |
| description | his study investigated the cognitive processing of true and false political information. Specifically, it examined the impact of source credibility on the assessment of veracity when information comes from a polarizing source (Experiment 1), and effectiveness of explanations when they come from one's own political party or an opposition party (Experiment 2). These experiments were conducted prior to the 2016 Presidential election. Participants rated their belief in factual and incorrect statements that President Trump made on the campaign trail; facts were subsequently affirmed and misinformation retracted. Participants then re-rated their belief immediately or after a delay. Experiment 1 found that (i) if information was attributed to Trump, Republican supporters of Trump believed it more than if it was presented without attribution, whereas the opposite was true for Democrats and (ii) although Trump supporters reduced their belief in misinformation items following a correction, they did not change their voting preferences. Experiment 2 revealed that the explanation's source had relatively little impact, and belief updating was more influenced by perceived credibility of the individual initially purporting the information. These findings suggest that people use political figures as a heuristic to guide evaluation of what is true or false, yet do not necessarily insist on veracity as a prerequisite for supporting political candidates. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:28:34Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/110045 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | en_US |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T09:28:34Z |
| publishDate | 2017 |
| publisher | Royal Society |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1100452022-09-30T14:39:25Z Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon Lewandowsky, Stephan Ecker, Ullrich K. H. Swire-Thompson, Briony Berinsky, Adam Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science Swire-Thompson, Briony Berinsky, Adam his study investigated the cognitive processing of true and false political information. Specifically, it examined the impact of source credibility on the assessment of veracity when information comes from a polarizing source (Experiment 1), and effectiveness of explanations when they come from one's own political party or an opposition party (Experiment 2). These experiments were conducted prior to the 2016 Presidential election. Participants rated their belief in factual and incorrect statements that President Trump made on the campaign trail; facts were subsequently affirmed and misinformation retracted. Participants then re-rated their belief immediately or after a delay. Experiment 1 found that (i) if information was attributed to Trump, Republican supporters of Trump believed it more than if it was presented without attribution, whereas the opposite was true for Democrats and (ii) although Trump supporters reduced their belief in misinformation items following a correction, they did not change their voting preferences. Experiment 2 revealed that the explanation's source had relatively little impact, and belief updating was more influenced by perceived credibility of the individual initially purporting the information. These findings suggest that people use political figures as a heuristic to guide evaluation of what is true or false, yet do not necessarily insist on veracity as a prerequisite for supporting political candidates. 2017-06-20T14:07:52Z 2017-06-20T14:07:52Z 2017-02 2016-10 Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2054-5703 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/110045 Swire, Briony; Berinsky, Adam J.; Lewandowsky, Stephan and Ecker, Ullrich K. H. “Processing Political Misinformation: Comprehending the Trump Phenomenon.” Royal Society Open Science 4, no. 3 (March 2017): 160802 © 2017 The Authors https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7827-9396 en_US http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160802 Royal Society Open Science Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/pdf Royal Society The Royal Society |
| spellingShingle | Lewandowsky, Stephan Ecker, Ullrich K. H. Swire-Thompson, Briony Berinsky, Adam Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon |
| title | Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon |
| title_full | Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon |
| title_fullStr | Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon |
| title_full_unstemmed | Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon |
| title_short | Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon |
| title_sort | processing political misinformation comprehending the trump phenomenon |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/110045 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7827-9396 |
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