When is Disinformation (In)Credible? Experimental Findings on Message Characteristics and Individual Differences

ABSTRACT

Disinformation on the Internet has become a major threat to our society. Especially false and inaccurate information in the form of news might have detrimental consequences for the democratic process when biasing individuals’ political views. To combat disinformation, a necessary first step is to investigate the factors relevant for individuals to detected false information online. Hence, we conducted an experiment (N = 294) to investigate effects of message factors and individual differences on individuals’ credibility and accuracy perceptions of disinformation as well as on their likelihood of sharing them. Results suggest that message factors, such as the source, inconsistencies, subjectivity, sensationalism, or manipulated images, seem less important for users’ evaluations of disinformation articles than individual differences. While need for cognition seems most relevant for accuracy perceptions, the opinion toward the news topic seems most crucial for whether people believe in the news and share it online.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Notes

¹ An ANOVA revealed no significant differences between participants in the different experimental conditions regarding NFC, FII, verification behavior, Internet search self-efficacy, political orientation, knowledge of the topic, relevance of the topic, and opinion toward the topic.

² The Levene’s test was significant, F(11,282) = 1.92, p = .037), revealing heterogeneity of variances.

³ The Levene’s test was significant, F(11,282) = 5.02, p < .001), revealing heterogeneity of variances.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research in the program IT Security (“autonomous and safe in the digitized world”, grant number 16KIS0773).

Notes on contributors

Leonie Schaewitz

Leonie Schaewitz (formerly Leonie Rösner) received her Ph.D. in 2018 from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, where she was a doctoral and postdoctoral researcher in the group Social Psychology: Media and Communication. Currently she works as a research associate in the Educational Psychology Research Group at the Ruhr University Bochum. Her research interests include effects of social technologies on users’ cognitions and behaviors, including social influence processes, opinion formation, and credibility perceptions in online contexts.

Jan P. Kluck

Jan P. Kluck, M.Sc., is a doctoral researcher in the department of Social Psychology: Media and Communication at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. His research explores interpersonal communication with and through digital media. He is particularly interested in the causes and effects of incivility in the political online communication.

Lukas Klösters

Lukas Klösters, M.Sc. (University of Duisburg-Essen), was a student research assistant in the group Social Psychology: Media and Communication at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany.

Nicole C. Krämer

Nicole C. Krämer is a Full Professor of Social Psychology, Media and Communication at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. She completed her Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Cologne, Germany, in 2001 and received the venia legendi for psychology in 2006. Dr. Krämer's research focuses on social psychological aspects of human-machine-interaction (especially social effects of robots and virtual agents) and computer-mediated-communication (CMC). She investigates processes of information selection, opinion building, and relationship maintenance of people communicating via Internet, especially via social networking sites.