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Abstract

What is the role of emotion in susceptibility to believing fake news? Prior work on the psychology of misinformation has focused primarily on the extent to which reason and deliberation hinder versus help the formation of accurate beliefs. Several studies have suggested that people who engage in more reasoning are less likely to fall for fake news. However, the role of reliance on emotion in belief in fake news remains unclear. To shed light on this issue, we explored the relationship between specific emotions and belief in fake news (Study 1; N = 409).We found that across a wide range of specific emotions, heightened emotionality was predictive of increased belief in fake (but not real) news. Then, in Study 2, we measured and manipulated reliance on emotion versus reason across four experiments (total N = 3884). We found both correlational and causal evidence that reliance on emotion increases belief in fake news: Selfreported use of emotion was positively associated with belief in fake (but not real) news, and inducing reliance on emotion resulted in greater belief in fake (but not real) news stories compared to a control or to inducing reliance on reason. These results shed light on the unique role that emotional processing may play in susceptibility to fake news.

Analytic thinking predicts accuracy ratings and willingness to share COVID-19 misinformation in Australia

“…Taken together, these findings provide support for the classical reasoning account of misinformation perception (Pennycook & Rand, 2019b), consistent with a growing body of evidence accumulated across the world (Bago et al, 2021;Bronstein et al, 2019;Martel et al, 2019;Pennycook, McPhetres, Zhang, et al, 2020;Pennycook & Rand, 2019b).…”

“…According to the classical account of reasoning, people who fail to override their Type 1 responses are more likely to perceive misinformation as true (Pennycook & Rand, 2019b). Consistent with this hypothesis, research indicates that people who rely more on analytic thinking and less on emotions are less likely to believe in misinformation (Martel et al, 2019); people tend to rationalize information that aligns with their attitudes when put under time pressure but are more likely to form objectively correct interpretations when allowed more time for reflection (Bago et al, 2021); and people higher in analytic thinking are less likely to believe political misinformation, even when it aligns with their political ideology (Pennycook & Rand, 2019b;Ross et al, 2021).…”