Breaking (Fake) News: No Personal Relevance Effect on Misinformation Vulnerability.

ABSTRACT: The massive spread of fake news (FN) requires a better understanding of both risks and protective psychological factors underlying vulnerability to misinformation. Prior studies have mostly dealt with news that do not bear any direct personal relevance to participants. Here, we ask whether high-stakes news topics may decrease vulnerability to FN. Data were collected during the national lockdown in Italy (COVID-19 news) and one year later (political news). We compared truth discrimination and overall belief for true news (TN) and FN concerning COVID-19 and political topics. Our findings indicate that psychological risk and protective factors have similar effects on truth discrimination, regardless of whether the news topic is highly or minimally personally relevant. However, we found differ

SUBMITTER: Ceccarini F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10669344 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature