Interpersonal factors and mental well‐being are associated with accuracy in judging the veracity of political news

Abstract

More work needs to be done to understand how mental well‐being and interpersonal factors are associated with biases in judging the veracity of true and false political information. Three days before the 2020 U.S. presidential election, 477 participants guessed the veracity of true and false political statements. Interpersonal factors (e.g., high prosociality and a need to belong) and mental health risk factors (e.g., high depressive symptoms and low eudaimonic well‐being) were highly associated with believing false information. Further, positive well‐being was associated with assessing news with a partisan bias. Next, hierarchical regression was used to better understand the combination of factors which best predict accurate judgments. To reduce the chances of overfitting, out‐of‐sample validation was used. About 40% of the variance for believing false information was explained by high prosociality and low well‐being. In addition, well‐being mediated the effects of political ideology when assessing the veracity of political information.

Depressive symptoms and conspiracy beliefs

“…And, yet, another possibility taps the connection between depression and negative affect (Crawford & Henry, 2004), and negative affect has been shown to correlate with misinformed thinking (Martel et al, 2020; Rauwolf, 2022). This is a notably intriguing possibility insofar as Rauwolf (2022) shows that correlation between depression and, in that case, discernment in judging false statements largely disappears once accounting for negative affect. Clearly, much remains to be done to understand the mechanisms that link depression and conspiracy beliefs and how the moderators we have identified affect those processes.…”

“…To cope with such feelings, individuals often seek to regain a sense of control and conspiracy theories facilitate this process by providing explanations and a sense of certainty (Kossowsak & Bukowski, 2015;Levinsson et al, 2021;Moulding et al, 2016;van Prooijen, 2017;van Prooijen & Douglas, 2017). And, yet, another possibility taps the connection F I G U R E 4 Heterogeneous impact of moderate depressive symptoms, wave 3 between depression and negative affect (Crawford & Henry, 2004), and negative affect has been shown to correlate with misinformed thinking (Martel et al, 2020;Rauwolf, 2022). This is a notably intriguing possibility insofar as Rauwolf (2022) shows that correlation between depression and, in that case, discernment in judging false statements largely disappears once accounting for negative affect.…”

Who Gets Caught in the Web of Lies?: Understanding Susceptibility to Phishing Emails, Fake News Headlines, and Scam Text Messages

“…Additionally, some research has suggested that younger adults may be more vulnerable than their older adult counterparts (e.g., Sarno et al, 2020; Sheng et al, 2011). Interestingly, younger age has also been linked to an increased vulnerability to text attacks (Clasen et al, 2021) and younger adults have been reported to believe false information more than older adults (Buchanan, 2020; Rauwolf, 2022; Vijaykumar et al, 2021). However, older adults have been found to share more false information online than any other age group (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Brashier & Schacter, 2020; Schaewitz et al, 2020).…”