Abstract
False news stories cause welfare losses and fatal health consequences. To limit its dissemination, it is essential to know what determines the ability to distinguish between true and false news stories. In our experimental study, we present subjects corona-related stories taken from the media from various categories (e.g. social isolation, economic consequences, direct health consequences, and strong exaggeration). The subject’s task is to evaluate the stories as true or false. Besides students with and without healthcare background, we recruit healthcare professionals to increase the external validity of our study. Our main findings are: (i) Healthcare professionals perform similar to students in correctly distinguishing between true and false news stories. (ii) The propensity to engage in analytical thinking and actively open-minded thinking is positively associated with the ability to distinguish between true and false. (iii) We find that the residence of the subjects (East- or West-Germany) plays only a minor role. (iv) If news stories are in line with existing narratives, subjects tend to think that the stories are true.
Highlights
The corona crisis has provided many examples of what Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization [1], denoted as an “infodemic.” For example, it has been suggested to cure Covid-19 with the help of smoking, cocaine, or even cow urine
Our sample contains 213 healthcare professionals
The level of education of the nonhealthcare professionals is relatively high. This is important since non-healthcare professionals are a significant part of our control group in the population analysis
Summary
The corona crisis has provided many examples of what Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization [1], denoted as an “infodemic.” For example, it has been suggested to cure Covid-19 with the help of smoking, cocaine, or even cow urine. Conspiracy theories and false claims went viral when, for example, about 20,000 people were demonstrating in Berlin (Germany) in June 2020 against the corona measures of chancellor Merkel. Some people (mostly supporters of right-wing parties) shared postings that a lot more people would have joined the demonstration. These unedited news stories are dangerous in that they give the impression that a lot more people are against these measures.
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