Cargando…

Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon

This study investigated the cognitive processing of true and false political information. Specifically, it examined the impact of source credibility on the assessment of veracity when information comes from a polarizing source (Experiment 1), and effectiveness of explanations when they come from one...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Swire, Briony, Berinsky, Adam J., Lewandowsky, Stephan, Ecker, Ullrich K. H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society Publishing 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5383823/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28405366
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160802
_version_ 1782520349698555904
author Swire, Briony
Berinsky, Adam J.
Lewandowsky, Stephan
Ecker, Ullrich K. H.
author_facet Swire, Briony
Berinsky, Adam J.
Lewandowsky, Stephan
Ecker, Ullrich K. H.
author_sort Swire, Briony
collection PubMed
description This study investigated the cognitive processing of true and false political information. Specifically, it examined the impact of source credibility on the assessment of veracity when information comes from a polarizing source (Experiment 1), and effectiveness of explanations when they come from one's own political party or an opposition party (Experiment 2). These experiments were conducted prior to the 2016 Presidential election. Participants rated their belief in factual and incorrect statements that President Trump made on the campaign trail; facts were subsequently affirmed and misinformation retracted. Participants then re-rated their belief immediately or after a delay. Experiment 1 found that (i) if information was attributed to Trump, Republican supporters of Trump believed it more than if it was presented without attribution, whereas the opposite was true for Democrats and (ii) although Trump supporters reduced their belief in misinformation items following a correction, they did not change their voting preferences. Experiment 2 revealed that the explanation's source had relatively little impact, and belief updating was more influenced by perceived credibility of the individual initially purporting the information. These findings suggest that people use political figures as a heuristic to guide evaluation of what is true or false, yet do not necessarily insist on veracity as a prerequisite for supporting political candidates.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5383823
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2017
publisher The Royal Society Publishing
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-53838232017-04-12 Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon Swire, Briony Berinsky, Adam J. Lewandowsky, Stephan Ecker, Ullrich K. H. R Soc Open Sci Biology (Whole Organism) This study investigated the cognitive processing of true and false political information. Specifically, it examined the impact of source credibility on the assessment of veracity when information comes from a polarizing source (Experiment 1), and effectiveness of explanations when they come from one's own political party or an opposition party (Experiment 2). These experiments were conducted prior to the 2016 Presidential election. Participants rated their belief in factual and incorrect statements that President Trump made on the campaign trail; facts were subsequently affirmed and misinformation retracted. Participants then re-rated their belief immediately or after a delay. Experiment 1 found that (i) if information was attributed to Trump, Republican supporters of Trump believed it more than if it was presented without attribution, whereas the opposite was true for Democrats and (ii) although Trump supporters reduced their belief in misinformation items following a correction, they did not change their voting preferences. Experiment 2 revealed that the explanation's source had relatively little impact, and belief updating was more influenced by perceived credibility of the individual initially purporting the information. These findings suggest that people use political figures as a heuristic to guide evaluation of what is true or false, yet do not necessarily insist on veracity as a prerequisite for supporting political candidates. The Royal Society Publishing 2017-03-01 /pmc/articles/PMC5383823/ /pubmed/28405366 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160802 Text en © 2017 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Biology (Whole Organism)
Swire, Briony
Berinsky, Adam J.
Lewandowsky, Stephan
Ecker, Ullrich K. H.
Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon
title Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon
title_full Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon
title_fullStr Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon
title_full_unstemmed Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon
title_short Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon
title_sort processing political misinformation: comprehending the trump phenomenon
topic Biology (Whole Organism)
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5383823/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28405366
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsos.160802
work_keys_str_mv AT swirebriony processingpoliticalmisinformationcomprehendingthetrumpphenomenon
AT berinskyadamj processingpoliticalmisinformationcomprehendingthetrumpphenomenon
AT lewandowskystephan processingpoliticalmisinformationcomprehendingthetrumpphenomenon
AT eckerullrichkh processingpoliticalmisinformationcomprehendingthetrumpphenomenon