I think, therefore I ignore: a study on disinformation’s credibility perceptions and sharing intentions over social media

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper evaluates the influence that bandwagon heuristics (conceptualized as the number of likes and comments’ valence) and actively open-minded thinking (AOT) have on the credibility and sharing of disinformation over social media. Across two experimental studies, Study 1 finds a direct link between the sharing intention of social media posts containing disinformation and an interactive effect of AOT on such bandwagon heuristics. Study 2 demonstrates that for posts containing disinformation, the number of likes has a significant influence on sharing intentions, but not credibility, whilst comments have a significant influence on credibility, but not sharing intentions. Furthermore, Study 2 found the influence of AOT attenuates the effects of such heuristics. Overall, this research contributes to the extant literature and practice by demonstrating the influence bandwagon heuristics and AOT have on disinformation over social media. This paper further presents areas of future research to improve the understanding of how disinformation spreads.