Abstract
Fake news is a serious problem because it misinforms people about important issues. The present study examined belief in false headlines about election fraud after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Belief in election fraud had dangerous consequences, including the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. In the present study, participants rated the truthfulness of true and false headlines about the election, and then completed individual difference measures eight days after the election. Participants with more conservative ideology, greater presidential approval of the outgoing president, greater endorsement of general conspiracy narratives and poorer cognitive reflection demonstrated greater belief in false headlines about election fraud. Additionally, consuming more politically conservative election news was associated with greater belief in false headlines. Identifying the factors related to susceptibility to false claims of election fraud offers a path toward countering the influence of these claims by tailoring interventions aimed at decreasing belief in misinformation and decreasing conspiracy beliefs to those most susceptible.
Highlights
Fake news—the presentation of false or misleading information as if it were legitimate journalism—is rampant
We examined the roles of political ideology, approval of the outgoing president, trust in mainstream media, cognitive reflection, education, susceptibility to conspiracy narratives and news consumption in the perceived truth of false headlines about election fraud
Approval of the outgoing president and conspiracy beliefs were positively correlated with belief in false election news, whereas media trust and cognitive reflection were negatively correlated with it
Summary
Fake news—the presentation of false or misleading information as if it were legitimate journalism—is rampant. Fake news is perceived as a serious problem by the public [1], and despite the ongoing attempts of social media platforms to limit its spread, the problem appears to be increasing. The share of social media engagements from unreliable news sites doubled from 2019 to 2020 [2]. Interactions with deceptive sites have increased on Facebook and Twitter in recent years [3]. The stakes are high, as fake news can misinform people about important issues, such as climate change [4] and COVID-19 [5]. Fake news may threaten the ability of people to agree on what is true [6]
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