Reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news
What is the role of emotion in susceptibility to believing fake news? Prior work on the psychology of misinformation has focused primarily on the extent to which reason and deliberation hinder versus help the formation of accurate beliefs. Several studies have suggested that people who engage in mor...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Springer Science and Business Media LLC
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128374 |
| _version_ | 1826206846481858560 |
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| author | Martel, Cameron Pennycook, Gordon Rand, David Gertler |
| author2 | Sloan School of Management |
| author_facet | Sloan School of Management Martel, Cameron Pennycook, Gordon Rand, David Gertler |
| author_sort | Martel, Cameron |
| collection | MIT |
| description | What is the role of emotion in susceptibility to believing fake news? Prior work on the psychology of misinformation has focused primarily on the extent to which reason and deliberation hinder versus help the formation of accurate beliefs. Several studies have suggested that people who engage in more reasoning are less likely to fall for fake news. However, the role of reliance on emotion in belief in fake news remains unclear. To shed light on this issue, we explored the relationship between experiencing specific emotions and believing fake news (Study 1; N = 409). We found that across a wide range of specific emotions, heightened emotionality at the outset of the study was predictive of greater belief in fake (but not real) news posts. Then, in Study 2, we measured and manipulated reliance on emotion versus reason across four experiments (total N = 3884). We found both correlational and causal evidence that reliance on emotion increases belief in fake news: self-reported use of emotion was positively associated with belief in fake (but not real) news, and inducing reliance on emotion resulted in greater belief in fake (but not real) news stories compared to a control or to inducing reliance on reason. These results shed light on the unique role that emotional processing may play in susceptibility to fake news. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:39:11Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/128374 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T13:39:11Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1283742021-09-10T19:24:27Z Reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news Martel, Cameron Pennycook, Gordon Rand, David Gertler Sloan School of Management Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences What is the role of emotion in susceptibility to believing fake news? Prior work on the psychology of misinformation has focused primarily on the extent to which reason and deliberation hinder versus help the formation of accurate beliefs. Several studies have suggested that people who engage in more reasoning are less likely to fall for fake news. However, the role of reliance on emotion in belief in fake news remains unclear. To shed light on this issue, we explored the relationship between experiencing specific emotions and believing fake news (Study 1; N = 409). We found that across a wide range of specific emotions, heightened emotionality at the outset of the study was predictive of greater belief in fake (but not real) news posts. Then, in Study 2, we measured and manipulated reliance on emotion versus reason across four experiments (total N = 3884). We found both correlational and causal evidence that reliance on emotion increases belief in fake news: self-reported use of emotion was positively associated with belief in fake (but not real) news, and inducing reliance on emotion resulted in greater belief in fake (but not real) news stories compared to a control or to inducing reliance on reason. These results shed light on the unique role that emotional processing may play in susceptibility to fake news. 2020-11-05T22:07:17Z 2020-11-05T22:07:17Z 2020-10 2020-06 2020-11-04T16:04:02Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2365-7464 https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128374 Martel, Cameron et al. "Reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news." Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications 5, 1 (October 2020): 47 © 2020 The Author(s) en http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41235-020-00252-3 Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ application/octet-stream Springer Science and Business Media LLC Springer |
| spellingShingle | Martel, Cameron Pennycook, Gordon Rand, David Gertler Reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news |
| title | Reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news |
| title_full | Reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news |
| title_fullStr | Reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news |
| title_full_unstemmed | Reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news |
| title_short | Reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news |
| title_sort | reliance on emotion promotes belief in fake news |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/128374 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT martelcameron relianceonemotionpromotesbeliefinfakenews AT pennycookgordon relianceonemotionpromotesbeliefinfakenews AT randdavidgertler relianceonemotionpromotesbeliefinfakenews |