08:30 - 10:00
Tue-HS3-Talk IV-
Tue-Talk IV-
Room: HS3
Chair/s:
Michael Geers
Misinformation poses a serious challenge to societies and democracies worldwide. This symposium brings together novel methodological approaches and empirical insights on the psychology of misinformation, but also critically discusses current research practices and paradigms. Talk 1 (Lena Nadarevic, University of Mannheim) introduces an experiment testing the effectiveness of warnings against the truth effect in a simulated social media environment. Talk 2 (Mubashir Sultan, Max Planck Institute for Human Development) presents a meta-analysis on news veracity judgments of misinformation. It will aggregate previous findings, highlighting pertinent trends for the predictors of misinformation susceptibility, including demographics (e.g., age, political identity), analytical thinking, partisan bias, and the illusory truth effect. Talk 3 (Michael Geers, Max Planck Institute for Human Development) introduces a task analysis that identifies the processes required for users to share true content online. It also highlights some cognitive and motivational challenges for sharing true content, maps interventions, and identifies open research questions. Finally, a panel discussion critically discusses the current state of misinformation research, including reflections on the ecological validity of experimental paradigms and the extent to which some work on misinformation has come short of building on previous psychological research. Next to the speakers of talks 1-3, the discussion features Pia Lamberty, co-director of the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (CeMAS). She studies how people at the center of society are radicalized by conspiracy theories and reject democracy altogether, and her real-world experience may offer a new perspective that many experimental psychologists do not have.
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Do warnings eliminate the truth effect for mock tweets that appear to differ in source credibility?
Tue-HS3-Talk IV-01
Presented by: Lena Nadarevic
Lena Nadarevic, Julian Ziegler
Universität Mannheim
The illusory truth effect is the effect that familiar statements, i.e., statements that people have read or heard before, are more likely to be considered true compared to unfamiliar statements. This effect has serious implications for the real world. For example, it implies that misinformation circulating on social media gains credibility by repeated exposure. Thus, the question arises whether the truth effect can be prevented by warning people about the effect. In prior studies, attempts to eliminate the truth effect by warnings had limited success (Nadarevic & Aßfalg, 2017; Calio et al., 2020). More specifically, warned individuals were able to reduce the effect but failed to eliminate it. However, these studies lacked external validity as the statements were presented in isolation, i.e., without any alternative cue that might have helped participants judge a statement’s truth. Therefore, we aimed at testing the effectiveness of warnings against the truth effect in a simulated social media context (here: a simulated Twitter feed) that involved alleged source credibility as an alternative cue for truth. Yet, even in this more contextually rich setting, our findings were similar to those of the previous studies. That is, warned participants showed a smaller truth effect compared to a control group but were unable to eliminate the effect. Moreover, although both experimental groups included source credibility in their truth judgments, warnings against the truth effect did not increase reliance on source credibility.
Keywords: truth effect, source credibility, warnings, judgment cues, social media
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