The impact of personality in recognizing disinformation

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate and quantify the effects of personality traits, as defined by the five-factor model (FFM) on an individual’s ability to detect fake news. The findings of this study are increasingly important because of the proliferation of social media news stories and the exposure of organizational stakeholders and business decision makers to a tremendous amount of information, including information that is not correct (a.k.a. disinformation). Design/methodology/approach The data were collected utilizing the snowball sampling methodology. Students in an Management Information Systems course completed the survey. Since a diverse sample was sought, survey participants were instructed to recruit another individual from a different generation. The survey questions of the FFM identify particular personality traits in respondents. Survey respondents were given a collection of nine news stories, five of which were false and four that were true. The number of correctly identified stories was recorded, and the effect of personality traits on the ability of survey respondents to identify fake news was calculated using eta-squared and the effect size index. Findings Each of the five factors in the FFM demonstrated an effect on an individual’s ability to detect disinformation. In fact, every single variable studied had at least a small effect size index, with one exception: gender, which had basically no effect. Therefore, each variable studied (with the exception of gender) explained a portion of the variability in the number of correctly identified false news stories. Specifically, this quantitative research demonstrates that individuals with the following personality traits are better able to identify disinformation: closed to experience or cautious, introverted, disagreeable or unsympathetic, unconscientious or undirected and emotionally stable. Originality/value There is scant research on an individual’s ability to detect false news stories, although some research has been conducted on the ability to detect phishing (a type of social engineering attack to obtain funds or personal information from the person being deceived). The results of this study enable corporations to determine which of their customers, investors and other stakeholders are most likely to be deceived by disinformation. With this information, they can better prepare for and combat the impacts of misinformation on their organization, and thereby avoid the negative financial impacts that result.

The Political Psychology of Lynching: WhatsApp Rumors, Anti-Government Appeals, and Violence

“…Age and gender, for instance, have been found to be connected with the acceptance and spread of misinformation (Chen et al 2015;Guess, Nagler, and Tucker 2019;Halpern et al 2019), and subjects with different personality traits have been found to be differently likely to disseminate rumors (Bronstein et al 2019;Chen and Sin 2013;Lai et al 2020; Wolverton and Stevens 2019). 2 In general, correlational studies have found individuals scoring higher in extroversion (Chen and Sin 2013), non-agreeableness (Buchanan and Benson 2019), and openness to experience (Wolverton and Stevens 2019) have been found to be associated with individuals 2 While Chen et al (2015) as well as Halpern et al (2019) find evidence that women are more likely to disseminate rumors. However, others have found the relation to go away under deeper scrutiny (Guess, Nagler, and Tucker 2019;Wolverton and Stevens 2019). willingness to accept and disseminate misinformation (Lai et al 2020;Wolverton and Stevens 2019).…”

“…2 In general, correlational studies have found individuals scoring higher in extroversion (Chen and Sin 2013), non-agreeableness (Buchanan and Benson 2019), and openness to experience (Wolverton and Stevens 2019) have been found to be associated with individuals 2 While Chen et al (2015) as well as Halpern et al (2019) find evidence that women are more likely to disseminate rumors. However, others have found the relation to go away under deeper scrutiny (Guess, Nagler, and Tucker 2019;Wolverton and Stevens 2019). willingness to accept and disseminate misinformation (Lai et al 2020;Wolverton and Stevens 2019).…”

The Political Psychology of Lynching: WhatsApp Rumors, Anti-Government Appeals, and Violence

“…Age and gender, for instance, have been found to be connected with the acceptance and spread of misinformation (Chen et al 2015;Guess, Nagler, and Tucker 2019;Halpern et al 2019), and subjects with different personality traits have been found to be differently likely to disseminate rumors (Bronstein et al 2019;Chen and Sin 2013;Lai et al 2020; Wolverton and Stevens 2019). 2 In general, correlational studies have found individuals scoring higher in extroversion (Chen and Sin 2013), non-agreeableness (Buchanan and Benson 2019), and openness to experience (Wolverton and Stevens 2019) have been found to be associated with individuals willingness to accept and disseminate misinformation (Lai et al 2020;Wolverton and Stevens 2019).…”

“… While Chen et al (2015) as well asHalpern et al (2019) find evidence that women are more likely to disseminate rumors. However, others have found the relation to go away under deeper scrutiny(Guess, Nagler, and Tucker 2019;Wolverton and Stevens 2019).…”

The evaluation of fake and true news: on the role of intelligence, personality, interpersonal trust, ideological attitudes, and news consumption

“…Oftentimes, these domains are labelled the Big Five personality traits including Openness (to Experience), Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism ( Goldberg, 1990 ; Rammstedt and Danner, 2017 ; Tupes and Christal, 1992 ). These traits have been associated with a range of different variables such as believing (false) rumors ( Lai et al., 2020 ) and fake news ( Wolverton and Stevens, 2019 ) 1 . Of special interest in light of fake news is Openness.…”