Table_1_Are we willing to share what we believe is true? Factors influencing susceptibility to fake news.DOCX

BackgroundThe contemporary media landscape is saturated with the ubiquitous presence of misinformation. One can point to several factors that amplify the spread and dissemination of false information, such as blurring the line between expert and layman's opinions, economic incentives promoting the publication of sensational information, the zero cost of sharing false information, and many more. In this study, we investigate some of the mechanisms of fake news dissemination that have eluded scientific scrutiny: the evaluation of veracity and behavioral engagement with information in light of its factual truthfulness (either true or false), cognitive utility (either enforcing or questioning participants' beliefs), and presentation style (either sober or populistic).ResultsTwo main results emerge from our experiment. We find that the evaluation of veracity is mostly related to the objective truthfulness of a news item. However, the probability of engagement is more related to the congruence of the information with the participants' preconceived beliefs than to objective truthfulness or information presentation style.ConclusionWe conclude a common notion that the spread of fake news can be limited by fact-checking and educating people might not be entirely true, as people will share fake information as long as it reduces the entropy of their mental models of the world. We also find support for the Trojan Horse hypothesis of fake news dissemination.

背景：当代媒体景观充斥着虚假信息的普遍存在。诸多因素加剧了虚假信息的传播与散布，例如模糊专家与业余人士意见的界限、经济激励促进耸人听闻信息的发布、分享虚假信息的零成本等。在本研究中，我们探讨了一些虚假新闻传播机制，这些机制尚未接受科学审查：对信息真实性的评估及其与事实真相（无论真伪）的关联、认知效用（无论是加强还是质疑参与者的信念），以及呈现风格（无论是严肃还是民粹）。结果：我们的实验产生了两个主要结果。我们发现，对真实性的评估主要与新闻项目的客观真实性相关。然而，参与的可能性更多与信息与参与者先入为主的信念的一致性相关，而非客观真实性或信息呈现风格。结论：我们得出一个普遍的观点，即通过事实核查和宣传教育来限制虚假新闻的传播可能并不完全正确，因为只要虚假信息能降低人们关于世界认知模型的不确定性，他们就会分享虚假信息。我们还对虚假新闻传播的木马理论找到了支持。