I think this news is accurate”: endorsing accuracy decreases the sharing of fake news and increases the sharing of real news
Open accessAbstract
Accuracy prompts, nudges that make accuracy salient, typically decrease the sharing of fake news, while having little effect on real news. Here, we introduce a new accuracy prompt that is more effective than previous prompts, because it does not only reduce fake news sharing, but it also increases real news sharing. We report four preregistered studies showing that an "endorsing accuracy" prompt ("I think this news is accurate"), placed into the sharing button, decreases fake news sharing, increases real news sharing, and keeps overall engagement constant. We also explore the mechanism through which the intervention works. The key results are specific to endorsing accuracy, rather than accuracy salience, and endorsing accuracy does not simply make participants apply a "source heuristic." Finally, we use Pennycook et al.'s limited-attention model to argue that endorsing accuracy may work by making people more carefully consider their sharing decisions.
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Endorsing accuracy not only decreases the sharing of false news but also increases the sharing of true news.
“Moreover, endorsing accuracy not only decreases the sharing of false news but also increases the sharing of true news (35).”
From The impact of generative artificial intelligence on socioeconomic inequalities and policy making (2024) · cites this paper as [35]
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- Authors
- Capraro, V., & Celadin, T.
- Affiliations
- Middlesex University London (GB)
- University of Bologna (IT)
- Corresponding author
- Capraro, Valerio
- Venue
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2022-08-21
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- 1635-1645
- ISSN
- 0146-1672 (ISSN-L)
- 1552-7433
- PMC
- PMC10637098
- OpenAlex
- W4292554274
- Cited by
- 49
- References
- 27
- Citations by year
- 2026: 13 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 12.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Middlesex University Research Repository (Middlesex University Of London) (acceptedVersion)
- BOA (University of Milano-Bicocca) (submittedVersion)
- ARCA (Università Ca' Foscari Venezia) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Information Systems › Spam and Phishing Detection
- Keywords
- fake news, news sharing, nudging, information sharing behavior
- MeSH terms
- Heuristics, Disinformation, Humans
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