Approaching Fake News at the Expense of Truth: A Psychophysiological Study of News on Social Media

Abstract

In 2018, sixty-eight percent of adults in America obtained their news from social media sites. During the same period, the amount of fake news online has increased substantially, resulting in increased propagation of false information. The research literature is growing on the effects of fake news on social media, but few studies have examined psychophysiological responses to true and fake news on social media. This research utilizes psychophysiological measures, specifically heart rate variability and skin conductance, to compare the perceived believability of news headlines posted on social media. Our findings indicate that individuals exhibit increased levels of approach behavior to true and fake news on social media. Additionally, higher time spent on social media is related to an increase in approach behavior to fake news. These findings have important implications for research and practice.

Detecting fake news stories via multimodal analysis

“…These findings are also in line with some of the recent theoretical and empirical work that connects LC4MP and ELM with misinformation. Work by Fisher et al (2018) and Kirkwood and Minas (2020) suggests that an individual's a priori beliefs play an important role in how the information is processed. News stories that match with one's prior beliefs tend to be analyzed via the peripheral route, while stories that do not match one's prior beliefs are analyzed via the central route.…”

“…Next, we would like to perform a user study to understand the cognitive mechanisms behind the acceptance and continued belief in fake news. For instance, recent work suggests that a priori beliefs of an individual significantly affect how that individual engages with a news report (Kirkwood & Minas, 2020). It is therefore important to understand the cognitive processes guiding people toward clicking and sharing this news.…”

Dubito Ergo Sum: Exploring AI Ethics

“…User belief is noted to be one fundamental reason to spread misinformation. For instance, Kirkwood and Minas (2020) examine individual responses to fake and true news depending on whether a user believes it or not. This study shows that misinformation triggers more appetitive responses, such as spending more time on social media.…”

“…Recent scholarship has examined the structure and motivation of sharing misinformation on social media (e.g., King & Wang, 2021;Kirkwood & Minas, 2020).…”