Key Factors Detecting Health Disinformation

Data were collected from a cross-section of American citizens who were members of Qualtrics data panels. Data were collected from two similar but separate samples, using similar but separate measurement instruments. Each instrument contained 10 social media posts about 10 different health-related topics. Respondents were asked to evaluate the honesty of each post and then to provide a justification for their choice by choosing one or more reasons from a list of reasons they were provided. If they thought the post was honest, they were given one list of reasons; if they thought it was dishonest, they were given a different list of reasons. They could also add their own justifications in text boxes. Participants were also asked to provide some demographic data and to complete a five-item scale on “need for cognition.” Qualtrics asked potential participants four screening questions: education, household income, political party affiliation, and gender. Although there are two different data files, there is only one codebook, as both instruments measured the same variables.