Perceived truth of statements and simulated social media postings: an experimental investigation of source credibility, repeated exposure, and presentation format

Abstract

To better understand the spread of fake news in the Internet age, it is important to uncover the variables that influence the perceived truth of information. Although previous research identified several reliable predictors of truth judgments—such as source credibility, repeated information exposure, and presentation format—little is known about their simultaneous effects. In a series of four experiments, we investigated how the abovementioned factors jointly affect the perceived truth of statements (Experiments 1 and 2) and simulated social media postings (Experiments 3 and 4). Experiment 1 explored the role of source credibility (high vs. low vs. no source information) and presentation format (with vs. without a picture). In Experiments 2 and 3, we additionally manipulated repeated exposure (yes vs. no). Finally, Experiment 4 examined the role of source credibility (high vs. low) and type of repetition (congruent vs. incongruent vs. no repetition) in further detail. In sum, we found no effect of presentation format on truth judgments, but strong, additive effects of source credibility and repetition. Truth judgments were higher for information presented by credible sources than non-credible sources and information without sources. Moreover, congruent (i.e., verbatim) repetition increased perceived truth whereas semantically incongruent repetition decreased perceived truth, irrespectively of the source. Our findings show that people do not rely on a single judgment cue when evaluating a statement’s truth but take source credibility and their meta-cognitive feelings into account.

Advised or Paid Way to get it right. The contribution of fact-checking tips and monetary incentives to spotting scientific disinformation

“…In addition, compared to previous experiments, participants could open the original article of the post to confirm that it had actually been produced by the source and not fabricated, a factor that probably increased reliance on the source. These considerations and our findings are not sufficient to ascertain whether and under what circumstances reliance on the source is beneficial or detrimental; however, we argue that source information is important in many situations [70,71].…”

The Psychology of Fake News

“…This, in theory, could be effective because people (at least in the USA) are actually fairly good at distinguishing between low-and high-quality publishers [92]. However, experimental evidence on emphasizing news publishers is not very encouraging: Numerous studies find that making source information more salient (or removing it entirely) has little impact on whether people judge headlines to be accurate or inaccurate [37,[93][94][95][96][97] (although see [98,99]).…”

The psychological drivers of misinformation belief and its resistance to correction

“…This illusory truth effect arises because people use peripheral cues such as familiarity (a signal that a message has been encountered before) 36 , processing fluency (a signal that a message is either encoded or retrieved effortlessly) 37,38 and cohesion (a signal that the elements of a message have references in memory that are internally consistent) 39 as signals for truth, and the strength of these cues increases with repetition. Thus, repetition increases belief in both misinformation and facts [40][41][42][43] . Illusory truth can persist months after first exposure 44 , regardless of cognitive ability 45 and despite contradictory advice from an accurate source 46 or accurate prior knowledge 18,47 .…”