Abstract
The development and deployment of new technologies have influenced the media environment by enabling quick and effective dissemination of false news via social networks. Several experimental studies have highlighted the role of thinking style, social influence, source credibility and other factors when it comes to fake news recognition. Our study makes several contributions to existing knowledge. Web introduce a measure of conspiracy thinking, a comparison between politics and business news recognition, and we investigate the effects of sensationalist headlines on users’ abilities to differentiate between false and true news. 228 university students (203 completed the entire survey) from three departments (Humanities, Management, and Economics) took part in an online experiment. The results of a regression analysis demonstrate that double-checking of news online has a significant effect on individuals’ overall ability of differentiating between true and false news. Thinking styles, prior experience, and such control variables as age and gender have no significant effect on the overall level of accuracy. We also discuss the effects of different factors responsible for the accuracy of fake news recognition in business and political news, as well as several limitations of the study.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Pornpitakpan, C.: The persuasiveness of source credibility: a critical review of five decades’ evidence. J. Appl. Soc. Pyschol. 34, 243–281 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2004.tb02547.x
Morris, M.R., Counts, S., Roseway, A., Hoff, A., Schwarz, J.: Tweeting is believing?: understanding microblog credibility perceptions. In: Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work - CSCW 2012, Seattle, Washington, USA, p. 441. ACM Press (2012). https://doi.org/10.1145/2145204.2145274
Pennycook, G., Cannon, T.D., Rand, D.G.: Prior exposure increases perceived accuracy of fake news. J. Exp. Psychol. Gen. 147, 1865–1880 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000465
Pennycook, G., Rand, D.G.: Who falls for fake news? The roles of bullshit receptivity, overclaiming, familiarity, and analytic thinking. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jopy.12476. https://doi.org/10.1111/jopy.12476. Accessed 04 Sep 2019
Pennycook, G., Rand, D.G.: Lazy, not biased: Susceptibility to partisan fake news is better explained by lack of reasoning than by motivated reasoning. Cognition 188, 39–50 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2018.06.011
Bronstein, M.V., Pennycook, G., Bear, A., Rand, D.G., Cannon, T.D.: Belief in fake news is associated with delusionality, dogmatism, religious fundamentalism, and reduced analytic thinking. J. Appl. Res. Mem. Cogn. 8, 108–117 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2018.09.005
Colliander, J.: “This is fake news”: investigating the role of conformity to other users’ views when commenting on and spreading disinformation in social media. Comput. Hum. Behav. 97, 202–215 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2019.03.032
Coe, C.M.: Tell me lies: fake news, source cues, and partisan motivated reasoning (2018)
Stojanov, A., Halberstadt, J.: The conspiracy mentality scale: distinguishing between irrational and rational suspicion. Soc. Psychol. 50, 215–232 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000381
Lamberty, P., Imhoff, R.: Powerful pharma and its marginalized alternatives?: effects of individual differences in conspiracy mentality on attitudes toward medical approaches. Soc. Psychol. 49, 255–270 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1027/1864-9335/a000347
Uscinski, J.E., Olivella, S.: The conditional effect of conspiracy thinking on attitudes toward climate change. Res. Politics 4, 205316801774310 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168017743105
Frischlich, L., Brinkschulte, F., Becker, M.: The moderating role of right-wing authoritarianism and conspiracy mentality for the perception and effects of distorted news articles, 11
Horne, B.D., Adalı, S.: This just in: fake news packs a lot in title, uses simpler, repetitive content in text body, more similar to satire than real news. In: The Workshops of the Eleventh International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media AAAI (ICWSM 2017), Technical Report WS-17-17: News and Public Opinion, pp. 759–766 (2017)
Sitaula, N., Mohan, C.K., Grygiel, J., Zhou, X., Zafarani, R.: Credibility-based fake news detection. arXiv:1911.00643 [cs] (2019)
van Prooijen, J.-W., Douglas, K.M.: Belief in conspiracy theories: basic principles of an emerging research domain. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.2530. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2530. Accessed 04 Sep 2019
Edelson, J., Alduncin, A., Krewson, C., Sieja, J.A., Uscinski, J.E.: The effect of conspiratorial thinking and motivated reasoning on belief in election fraud. Polit. Res. Q. 70, 933–946 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917721061
Abalakina-Paap, M., Stephan, W.G., Craig, T., Gregory, W.L.: Beliefs in conspiracies. Polit. Psychol. 20, 637–647 (1999)
Goertzel, T.: Belief in conspiracy theories. Polit. Psychol. 15, 731–742 (1994)
Herrero-Diz, P., Conde-Jiménez, J., Tapia-Frade, A., Varona-Aramburu, D.: The credibility of online news: an evaluation of the information by university students /La credibilidad de las noticias en Internet: una evaluación de la información por estudiantes universitarios. Cultura y Educación 31, 407–435 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1080/11356405.2019.1601937
Frederick, S.: Cognitive reflection and decision making. J. Econ. Perspect. 19, 25–42 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1257/089533005775196732
Stieger, S., Reips, U.-D.: A limitation of the cognitive reflection test: familiarity. PeerJ 4, e2395 (2016). https://doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2395
Thomson, K.S., Oppenheimer, D.M.: Investigating an alternate form of the cognitive reflection test. Judgm. Decis. Mak. 11, 15 (2016)
Bruder, M., Haffke, P., Neave, N., Nouripanah, N., Imhoff, R.: Measuring individual differences in generic beliefs in conspiracy theories across cultures: conspiracy mentality questionnaire. Front. Psychol. 4 (2013). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00225
Бaйpaмoвa, Э.Э., Eникoлoпoв, C.H.: Aдaптaция мeтoдики oпpeдeлeния ypoвня мaгичecкoгo мышлeния M. Экблaдa и Л.Дж. Чaпмaнa нa pyccкoязычнoй выбopкe. Пcиxиaтpия, 40–46 (2016)
Eckblad, M., Chapman, L.J.: Magical ideation as an indicator of schizotypy. J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 51, 215–225 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.51.2.215
Inglehart, R., et al. (eds.): World Values Survey: Round Six (2014). http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/WVSDocumentationWV6.jsp
Navarrete, C.B., Soares, F.C.: Dominance Analysis Package. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/dominanceanalysis/dominanceanalysis.pdf
Acknowledgements
The research was implemented in the framework of the Russian Scientific Fund Grant №19-18-00206 at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE) in 2019.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Appendix 1
Appendix 1
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this paper
Cite this paper
Porshnev, A., Miltsov, A. (2020). The Effects of Thinking Styles and News Domain on Fake News Recognition by Social Media Users: Evidence from Russia. In: Meiselwitz, G. (eds) Social Computing and Social Media. Design, Ethics, User Behavior, and Social Network Analysis. HCII 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 12194. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49570-1_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49570-1_21
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-49569-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-49570-1
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)