Processing inaccurate information data

Data from: Processing political misinformation: comprehending the Trump phenomenon

This study investigated the cognitive processing of true and false political information. Specifically, it examined the impact of source credibility on the assessment of veracity when information comes from a polarizing source (Experiment 1), and effectiveness of explanations when they come from one's own political party or an opposition party (Experiment 2). These experiments were conducted prior to the 2016 Presidential election. Participants rated their belief in factual and incorrect statements that President Trump made on the campaign trail; facts were subsequently affirmed and misinformation retracted. Participants then re-rated their belief immediately or after a delay. Experiment 1 found that (i) if information was attributed to Trump, Republican supporters of Trump believed it more than if it was presented without attribution, whereas the opposite was true for Democrats and (ii) although Trump supporters reduced their belief in misinformation items following a correction, they did not change their voting preferences. Experiment 2 revealed that the explanation's source had relatively little impact, and belief updating was more influenced by perceived credibility of the individual initially purporting the information. These findings suggest that people use political figures as a heuristic to guide evaluation of what is true or false, yet do not necessarily insist on veracity as a prerequisite for supporting political candidates.

数据来源：《政治虚假信息处理：理解特朗普现象》
本研究针对真假政治信息的认知加工过程展开探究。具体而言，研究一考察了当信息来自极化立场信源时，信源可信度对真实性评估的影响；研究二则探究了来自己方政党或对立政党的解释的有效性。两项实验均于2016年美国总统大选前开展。
受试者对特朗普总统在竞选行程中发表的事实性与虚假言论的可信度进行评分；后续研究人员对事实内容予以证实，对虚假信息予以更正撤回，随后受试者立即或经过一段延迟后再次对可信度进行评分。研究一结果显示：其一，当信息被归因于特朗普时，支持特朗普的共和党选民对该信息的信任度高于无归因条件下的情况，而民主党选民则呈现相反趋势；其二，尽管特朗普支持者在收到更正后降低了对虚假信息的信任度，但并未改变其投票意向。研究二表明，解释的信源对可信度评估的影响相对有限，受试者的信念更新更多受最初发布该信息者的感知可信度影响。上述研究结果表明，人们会将政治人物作为判断信息真伪的启发式线索，但在支持政治候选人时，未必会将信息真实性作为必要前提。