Abstract
Growing evidence from online credibility research reveals that online users rely on heuristic processes to evaluate the credibility of online information. The current paper, which is based on the construal level theory (CLT), proposes that congruency between the psychological distance of a stimulus and the way it is mentally construed can act as a heuristic for believability. According to CLT, psychologically close (e.g., spatially, temporally, socially) stimuli are represented concretely whereas psychologically distant stimuli are represented abstractly. The level of mental construals and the psychological distance of information have been shown to influence people’s truth judgments in offline contexts. This study tests whether congruency between the construal level of people’s mindsets (abstract vs. concrete) and the psychological distance implied in an online message (far vs. close) enhances message believability. By partially confirming CLT predictions, we found that believability of an online news item about a distant location increased when people maintained an abstract mindset rather than a concrete one. The effect of a concrete mindset on believability was not significant for the close psychological distance condition. Our findings provide initial evidence that congruency between the construal level of people’s mindsets and psychological distance cues in online messages can act as a heuristic for believability. We discuss the potential of applying the CLT framework to the growing literature on online cognitive heuristics in the area of online information credibility.
Highlights
People increasingly rely on the Internet as an information source for a wide range of topics that are relevant to their lives, such as health, news, commerce, and social relationships (Purcell and Rainie, 2014)
The present paper extends the online credibility research by proposing the construal level theory (CLT) as a framework that allows the systematic investigation of a novel set of heuristics on which users may rely to assess the believability of online messages (Liberman and Trope, 1998; Trope and Liberman, 2003, 2010)
The results revealed no main effects of construal level, F(1,139) = 0.18, p = 0.67, η2p = 0.001, and psychological distance, F(1,139) = 1.97, p = 0.16, η2p = 0.014
Summary
People increasingly rely on the Internet as an information source for a wide range of topics that are relevant to their lives, such as health, news, commerce, and social relationships (Purcell and Rainie, 2014). The Internet can provide access to high-quality information, it contains a large amount of information with questionable veracity and quality (Eysenbach et al, 2002; Kata, 2010). While factors such as the lack of quality standards and the openness to manipulation increase the amount of inaccurate information on the Internet, the lack of mechanisms for filtering and correcting information places responsibility on the user to effectively judge information accuracy (Metzger et al, 2003; Danielson, 2006; Flanagin and Metzger, 2008). Important heuristics that stem from the technological features of media, source characteristics, and interactions among users and users’ expectations, have been proposed as factors influencing online credibility (Flanagin and Metzger, 2000; Flanagin and Metzger, 2007; Hilligoss and Rieh, 2008; Sundar, 2008; Metzger et al, 2010; Metzger and Flanagin, 2013)
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