Individual differences in belief in fake news about election fraud after the 2020 U.S. election

Fake news is a serious problem because it misinforms people about important issues. The present study examined belief in false headlines about election fraud after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Belief in election fraud had dangerous consequences, including the deadly insurrection at the U.S....

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Calvillo, D.P (Author), Garcia, R.J.B (Author), Rutchick, A.M (Author)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI 2021
Subjects:
Online Access:View Fulltext in Publisher
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020 |a 2076328X (ISSN) 
245 1 0 |a Individual differences in belief in fake news about election fraud after the 2020 U.S. election 
260 0 |b MDPI  |c 2021 
856 |z View Fulltext in Publisher  |u https://doi.org/10.3390/bs11120175 
520 3 |a Fake news is a serious problem because it misinforms people about important issues. The present study examined belief in false headlines about election fraud after the 2020 U.S. presidential election. Belief in election fraud had dangerous consequences, including the deadly insurrection at the U.S. Capitol in January 2021. In the present study, participants rated the truthfulness of true and false headlines about the election, and then completed individual difference measures eight days after the election. Participants with more conservative ideology, greater presidential approval of the outgoing president, greater endorsement of general conspiracy narratives and poorer cognitive reflection demonstrated greater belief in false headlines about election fraud. Additionally, consuming more politically conservative election news was associated with greater belief in false headlines. Identifying the factors related to susceptibility to false claims of election fraud offers a path toward countering the influence of these claims by tailoring interventions aimed at decreasing belief in misinformation and decreasing conspiracy beliefs to those most susceptible. © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. 
650 0 4 |a Conspiracy beliefs 
650 0 4 |a Elections 
650 0 4 |a Fake news 
650 0 4 |a Misinformation 
650 0 4 |a Political ideology 
700 1 |a Calvillo, D.P.  |e author 
700 1 |a Garcia, R.J.B.  |e author 
700 1 |a Rutchick, A.M.  |e author 
773 |t Behavioral Sciences