Data in csv format from Does truth matter to voters? The effects of correcting political misinformation in an Australian sample

In the ‘post-truth era,’ political fact-checking has become an issue of considerable significance. A recent study in the context of the 2016 US election found that fact-checks of statements by Donald Trump changed participants' beliefs about those statements—regardless of whether participants supported Trump—but not their feelings towards Trump or voting intentions. However, the study balanced corrections of inaccurate statements with an equal number of affirmations of accurate statements. Therefore, the null effect of fact-checks on participants’ voting intentions and feelings may have arisen because of this artificially created balance. Moreover, Trump's statements were not contrasted with statements from an opposing politician, and Trump's perceived veracity was not measured. The present study (<i>N</i> = 370) examined the issue further, manipulating the ratio of corrections to affirmations, and using Australian politicians (and Australian participants) from both sides of the political spectrum. We hypothesized that fact-checks would correct beliefs and that fact-checks would affect voters’ support (i.e. voting intentions, feelings and perceptions of veracity), but only when corrections outnumbered affirmations. Both hypotheses were supported, suggesting that a politician's veracity does sometimes matter to voters. The effects of fact-checking were similar on both sides of the political spectrum, suggesting little motivated reasoning in the processing of fact-checks.

在后真相时代，政治事实核查已成为极具重要性的议题。一项针对2016年美国大选的近期研究显示，对唐纳德·特朗普（Donald Trump）言论的事实核查，能够改变参与者对这些言论的认知——无论参与者是否支持特朗普——但不会影响其对特朗普的个人观感与投票意向。然而，该研究将纠正不实言论的次数与肯定真实言论的次数设置为完全相等的比例。因此，此前研究中事实核查对参与者投票意向与观感呈现的零效应，或许正是源于这种人为构建的平衡。此外，该研究未将特朗普的言论与反对党政客的言论进行对照，也未测量参与者对特朗普言论的感知可信度。本研究（样本量<i>N</i> = 370）对此展开进一步探究：调整了纠正与肯定言论的比例，并选取了政治光谱两端的澳大利亚政客与澳大利亚参与者作为研究对象。本研究提出两项假设：其一，事实核查能够纠正参与者的认知；其二，仅当纠正不实言论的次数多于肯定真实言论的次数时，事实核查才会影响选民的支持倾向，具体包括投票意向、个人观感与感知可信度。两项假设均得到验证，表明政客的可信度有时确实会对选民产生影响。事实核查的影响在政治光谱两端均表现一致，这说明参与者在处理事实核查信息时，受动机性推理的影响极小。