Belief in fake news is associated with delusionality, dogmatism, religious fundamentalism, and reduced analytic thinking.
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© 2018 Society for Applied Research in Memory and Cognition Delusion-prone individuals may be more likely to accept even delusion-irrelevant implausible ideas because of their tendency to engage in less analytic and less actively open-minded thinking. Consistent with this suggestion, two online studies with over 900 participants demonstrated that although delusion-prone individuals were no more likely to believe true news headlines, they displayed an increased belief in “fake news” headlines, which often feature implausible content. Mediation analyses suggest that analytic cognitive style may partially explain these individuals’ increased willingness to believe fake news. Exploratory analyses showed that dogmatic individuals and religious fundamentalists were also more likely to believe false (but not true) news, and that these relationships may be fully explained by analytic cognitive style. Our findings suggest that existing interventions that increase analytic and actively open-minded thinking might be leveraged to help reduce belief in fake news.
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Evidence suggests that deliberation is associated with reduced belief in false news headlines that circulated on social media.
“Evidence suggests that deliberation is associated with 134-136 and causes 137 reduced belief in false news headlines that circulated on social media.”
From Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response (2020) · cites this paper as [136]
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- Authors
- Bronstein, M. V., Pennycook, G., Bear, A., Rand, D. G., & Cannon, T. D.
- Affiliations
- Yale University (US)
- University of Regina (CA)
- Harvard University (US)
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
- Venue
- Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition
- Published
- 2019-03
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 108-117
- ISSN
- 2211-3681 (ISSN-L)
- 2211-369X
- OpenAlex
- W2800525135
- Cited by
- 324
- References
- 60
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 17 · 2024: 35 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 46 · 2021: 86 · 2020: 80 · 2019: 18 · 2018: 2
- FWCI
- 105.79
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- cc-by-nc-sa
- Locations
- Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition (publishedVersion)
- DSpace@MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Paranormal Experiences and Beliefs
- Keywords
- fake news, delusions, analytical thinking, dogmatism, religious fundamentalism, open-mindedness, news headlines, cognitive style
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